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Book \H~ 



THE 



LOGIC OF STYLE 



C9l 

BEING 



AN INTRODUCTION TO 

Critical Science 



By WILLIAM EENTON 




LONDON 
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 

18 74 



[All Rights reserved] 






MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 



CONTENTS. 



f 



PAG K 

INTRODUCTION BY WAY OF PREFACE, ... 1 



CHAPTEE I. 

OF STYLE GENERALLY. 

Section I. Of Expression Generally, §§ 1 — 3, ... 41 

Section II. Of Style in its relation to Expression, §£ 4 . 56 

Section III. Of Style in its relation to Rhetoric, §§ 7 — 9, . . 69 

CHAPTEE II. 

OF QUALITY. 

Section I. The Conditions of Quality, §§ 10—12, ... 80 

Section II. Of Subtlety, §§ 13— 15, .... 89 

Section III. Of Comprehensiveness, §§ 16 — 18, . . . 108 

CHAPTEE III. 

OF QUANTITY. 

Section' 1. The Principle of Quautity, §§ 19— 21, . . 121 

Section II. Of Extension (Co-ordination), §§ 22—24, . .130 

Section III. Of Intension (Subordination), §§ 25—27, . . 139 



INTRODUCTION 

BY WAY OF PREFACE. 



It is a cumbrous disadvantage for an Introduction to a 
Theory of Style, that Style, as a science, stands so closely 
in interconnection with other sciences. This connection, on 
the one hand, is one of coincidence, on the other, of analogy. 
In the one instance, the science seems to support itself on 
the facts of the correlative sciences, in the other, on their 
principles. And so it is forced into relations that are too 
obvious to be repudiated, even while they are too numerous 
not to interfere with its free expansion as an independent 
system. 

This disadvantage, the most awkward that can arise for 
any theory claiming for its phenomena a distinct genesis 
and a distinct economy, is at the same time one of the least 
obvious. Not that the multiplicity in the relationships of 
Style to other subjects has been overlooked ; since it is the 
too common experience that mere redundancy of suggestion 
tends often to confound and perplex. Besides, from the 
opposite point of view, it could not fail to be noted, that, in 
the midst of any such redundancy, a certain proportion of 
ease must have attended the work of recombining materials 
which other sciences had discovered, or of organizing fresh 



INTRODUCTION. 

materials according to rules which they had suggested. The 
difficulty of the case is hidden by a prior misunderstanding 
as to the true scope of Style. And it arises from the doubt 
as to whether Style is to be regarded as a science at all, 
and as such in a position to be illuminated — with the pri- 
vilege of reciprocal illumination — by any science whatsoever. 

To the ordinary way of thinking, nothing more is required 
for a science than that the facts which it provides shall be 
susceptible of a logical classification. But there is also the 
negative condition of qualification — viz., that the science shall 
have its own lawful complement of facts. In the present 
case, Style is regarded somehow as a galaxy of miscellaneous 
truths, chiefly of truths practical and applied. If as a science 
it is to be considered, it seems to withdraw itself into such 
a science as Logic ; so that ultimately it is no science, want- 
ing an independent basis. But in this there is the natural 
oversight, that certain facts, however eagerly they may sub- 
mit to the rules of a system like Logic, as a primary source 
of administration, may yet be susceptible of a secondary treat- 
ment and valuation. Practical Style may be ; yet, examined 
philosophically, it will be found to include a nucleus of 
theoretic principles, to which, more immediately than to those 
of Logic, its facts may be referred. This skeleton of principle 
it is, this nucleus — whether it be one according to which 
certain facts common to all mental science are treated, or a 
derivative order of facts, or facts entirely original — which 
constitutes the Science of Style. 

For the coherent exposition of its own facts a theory 
requires a tolerably large compass. But, within that compass, 
and in the particular illustration of its facts, a science will 
infallibly ratify its claim to having special data. The more 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

unique its position theoretically, the more striking its inter- 
pretation of these data. But the burden of doing explicitly 
and by anticipation what the science itself does implicitly, 
descends upon the Introduction, which has to show with 
precision what the principle is, according to which phenomena 
that apparently have been pre-engrossed by sciences more 
lucky or more precocious, may be . treated, virtually, or in 
fact, as new. , The negative condition being thus satisfied, 
Style vaults airily into the cycle of the sciences. But this 
ennobling of Style, in claiming a scientific lineage for a 
certain order of facts, involves the enlarging of the concep- 
tion of science itself. Hence, in the second place, it devolves 
upon an Introduction to Style to reflect a principle upon 
science generally, as discovering a new variety of adaptation, 
and possibly of treatment. Bringing thus for the principle 
of science fresh facts, it brings for the facts of science a fresh 
principle. And so its two aims or results coincide. For the 
principle, under which the facts have been discovered to be 
amenable to scientific analysis, is precisely the principle 
which must underlie and coincide with the supplementary 
extension given to the notion of science. An incidental 
result is that the scientific meaning of certain acknowledged 
facts is established, where it was believed to be impossible ; 
and a profounder and more emphatic, because more precise 
and consistent, recognition given of them in regions, where, 
if in part formally recognised, they were virtually, and in 
their distinctive principle, denied. 

An operative, and, practically, a new distinction is intro- 
duced into science, when a division is made of the Subjective 
or Mental sciences into those which are concerned with Sensi- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

bility, and those which are not. The facts, and through the 
facts, the laws of Style, and, in a greater degree, of Music, 
are not to be obtained at first hand by every one. They are 
to be gathered only through a special medium, superadded to 
the intellectual medium which is essential to all scientific 
exposition. To Logic, however, as a branch of mental science, 
the term Subjective does not apply in the philosophic sense. 
Its phenomena are severely objective, in so far as they may 
be observed by everybody, and yield principles which each 
one may test for himself. In the same way, the facts of 
Style, though subject to a greater fluctuation and diversity 
than those of Logic, are also objective, in the sense that ulti- 
mately they rest on a common sensibility, not necessarily 
morbid in cases where it is hi<?h, nor coarse where it is low. 
The variations of individual, i.e. truly subjective, sensibility 
are infinite. But it is on that account precisely that a wary 
science will refuse to compromise itself by an explana- 
tion of facts, that, ex hypothesi, are too numerous to be 
explained. Such an explanation would be impossible. It 
would also be suicidal. For it is only with these variations 
as recurrent, and having essential points of agreement, and 
a catholic significance, that the science is concerned. All 
beyond that is isolated, in many cases contradictory. And 
with individual bias or eccentricity, even in a god, science 
has nothing to do. The limit, therefore, at which Style 
ceases to be objective, is where it ceases to transcend indi- 
vidual peculiarity, and where effects become local and capri- 
cious. At the same time, and while ultimately there is no 
difference in this respect, a distinction may be made between 
Style and Logic on the ground of the greater evasiveness of 
its phenomena, because adding an element distinct from that 



INTRODUCTION. D 

which makes, the logical phenomena themselves evasive as 
distinct from those of Physical Science. The sciences fall 
most conveniently, therefore, into this order, the Physical, 
the Philosophical, and the iEsthetic or Critical. The dis- 
tinction is valid for ordinary purposes, and must be insisted on 
for Style, especially in its relation to Logic, as occupying a 
station intermediate between it and the Natural Sciences — 
which relation is now illustrated in detail. 

1. Style, together with Logic, may in part be distinguished 
from the Physical Sciences by the less palpable nature of its 
phenomena, and, contingently, by the greater precariousness 
of its method. But it is also to be distinguished by the fact 
of being more stationary as a system. Not that mental 
science, as, for example, in the form of Psychology, where 
discoveries are constantly being registered, is not progressive 
as a whole, but, in certain fields belonging more exclusively 
to speculative analysis, it is improgressive. And a test 
(which must be verified historically) may thus be applied to 
discriminate the pure sections in philosophy from the mixed 
or derivative. Accordingly, those which at the very first are 
capable of a complete integration, go into the category of the 
cardinal sciences, and those which are not, into that of the 
derivative sciences. The facts of Style, in contradistinction 
to those of Physical Science, may be collected in virtual com- 
pleteness by one single observer. The theory is not one that 
depends on a complementary observation extending over an 
indefinite period of time. And so Style ranges itself, along 
with Logic and Grammar, under the category of Pure Mental 
Science. 

Notwithstanding this, there is no privileged road to dis- 
covery in Logic or in Style, other than that of severe 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

observation and reflection, by which science universally 
travels, so haughtily as regards its warrant, so patiently 
as regards its results. It is precisely as evanescent, and 
requiring a keener observation, that their phenomena are 
discarded for others of a more palpable character. Certainly 
there is no monopoly created for Style by the mere oppor- 
tunities which the individual theorist has for inquiry. 
Scientific success does not go according to the mechanical 
facilities which one man has, as compared with another, for 
collecting facts — is not given gratuitously — but goes accord- 
ing to individual capacity for the collation of facts, for 
observation and generalization. Else the savage has more 
opportunity of naturalistic acquirement, because more of 
naturalistic research, than the man of culture. Hence 
it is that mere perception of effects is not operative in 
all men alike, nor mediately to the same results. In Style, 
for example, the power to write idiomatically and with pre- 
cision does not confer the power of scientific analysis ; the 
two in all likelihood exist inversely as each other. But the 
literary power may evidently become a desirable co-efficient 
in an analysis that is dedicated exclusively to literary pheno- 
mena. And, in an analysis which aims at a precision as 
perfect as that attainable under any other science, it is too 
evidently an indispensable co-efficient. Hence the main dis- 
tinction between Logic and Style, in a sensibility which 
supplies the facts that are 'to be logically explained ; having, 
in so far, no value for Logic, but, on the other hand, being 
invaluable for ^Esthetic Criticism. 

2. Sensibility is, accordingly, the element which dis- 
tinguishes a logical from an aesthetic science. Not, however, 
in the sense of being antagonistic to logical analysis. On the 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

contrary, it is of no value in science without that. For literary 
science, therefore, considered in its unity, each is reciprocally 
indispensable to the other. The same truth is expressed in 
saying that Sensibility is the negative condition for all 
systematic inquiry in the region of literary effect ; as may be 
illustrated historically in relation to Style itself. 

Strictly speaking, Style has no history. For a history 
demands a unity of subject, with a series of developments 
more or less marked and continuous. The only interest that 
Style can have is, in this view, a negative and exoteric 
interest. Considered under this limitation, therefore, Style 
resolves itself historically into two momenta, or crises, of 
which the appearance of Aristotle forms the first. It might 
seem curious, that, of two subjects lying parallel to each other, 
that one should be chosen for the richer and more explicit 
treatment, whose phenomena are, on the whole, the more 
recondite. A man is naturally more struck by the use of 
a barbarism in speech — i.e. it is more of an event for him, 
whether he mentions it to his wife or not — than by the 
fact that his neighbour is reasoning in a circle. But the 
grossest phenomena are not always the most suggestive. 
Especially are they not likely to be suggestive when they 
appeal to a capacity, which, not being exceptionally sensitive 
itself, is flanked by a capacity that is exceptional for perceiv- 
ing and pursuing some other order of phenomena. 

This is sufficient to explain, for the moment, why Logic 
rather than Literary Science should have met with a con- 
clusive treatment at the hands of Aristotle. An attempt, it is 
true, was formally made by him to systematize the other class 
of facts. But it is clear that he did not apprehend the subject 
in its philosophic relations ; else he would have seen that it is 



a INTRODUCTION. 

precisely analogous to Logic — persistently and selfishly so — 
complementary to it, and erecting itself beside it to whatever 
extent, and in what direction soever it may be impelled. 
Hence the subordinate place assigned to Style in his complete 
system, as a suckling of Oratorical Science; and in such a 
way as to thwart and vitiate its literary significance. Hence 
also this very striking circumstance, connected with the fact 
of its depreciation. Considered independently, Style allows 
of an abstract treatment, in at least as great a degree as Logic. 
Sensibility apart, the pure intellect may construct a specula- 
tive science of the subject for itself. How much more then 
with the light reflected upon it so unequivocally by the 
revelations of Logic. But, as in passing from one subject to 
another, the two may be affected favourably by their intense 
juxtaposition, so sometimes they may be mischievously 
affected, and clash with each other. Having the first, a man 
will the more readily have the second ; or else, having the 
first, he will not have the second. Either his conception of 
the one, by implying the conception of the possible whole, 
will suggest and illuminate the other; or else, by palming 
itself off as the actual whole, will obscure the conception of 
the other. This is, to a certain extent, the explanation of 
the unimpartial treatment, so to speak, accorded to the 
Ehetoric, as compared with the Organon, where, upon a 
superficial view, brilliance of analysis might seem to have 
been most required. Since if — and if, then precisely because, 
his sensibility was not exceptional, Aristotle was bound to 
supplement it by that which he had in abundance. The case, 
however, was otherwise ; theorizing, in the absence of sen- 
sibility, being simply impossible. But in part also the want 
of susceptibility in this direction, which determined him to- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

wards Logic, as a science promising a more unique and 
opulent result, would determine him at the same time away 
from Style, as a field that did not present phenomena con- 
genial for exposition, and that did not, therefore, for his 
subtlety furnish an adequate stage of illustration. 

A proof of this appears in connection with the effects 
which more particularly he did note. It was open to him to 
have overlooked the whole body of literary appearances. 
What he did overlook was that section which is least pro- 
minent and most characteristic. Limiting his view thus, he 
concentrates attention upon those facts which it belongs to 
the average sensibility to descry for itself, and which require 
a very moderate effort to systematize. In this latter respect 
it is that the Ehetoric of Aristotle compares so meagrely with 
his Organon, and precisely because lacking, in its separate 
sphere, a corresponding depth of perception. The section of 
effects which the Ehetoric represents is concerned with that 
identical sphere of perception which is the most common, 
and, similarly, the Ehetoric itself is concerned with that 
systematizing of effects, whose activity unfolds itself most 
easily. Another sphere, which has been already indicated, is 
that of the abstract science, in which the principles of Logic 
and Style unfold concurrently. But the whole cycle of Stylic 
science is not complete, until a third section of still more 
complex effects is reduced to system. This order of effects is 
more subtle and intricate than any with which the analyst 
occupies himself in Logic. The dissertationist on Style in its 
more abstract relations does not necessarily possess a com- 
mand over this ultimate section; though he cannot investigate 
it thoroughly without that command. But, having the quali- 
fying sensibility, he will inevitably, in his analysis of it, recur 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

to the abstract science as his ultimate ground of reference. 
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, for want of this 
qualification, Aristotle should not have busied himself 
seriously with either the one section or the other — the acci- 
dent of the Organon apart, as a possible cause predisposing to, 
or away from, an equally rigorous and determinative treat- 
ment of Style. Within a certain compass his own style is 
unexceptionably good. But of any extrinsic brilliance in his 
writing, or even of the art of manoeuvring to advantage within 
the limits prescribed by philosophic exigencies, there is no 
trace. And, which is more important, to compensate for this 
want, there is no sign of any aesthetic perception of effects 
beyond those reproduced in his own practice. His critical 
susceptibility was not pitched (as it might quite well have 
been) upon a higher key than that to which he himself daily 
conformed. So that, as far as any acquaintance with the 
higher effects was concerned, it must have been drawn from 
the practice of his own countrymen. The Greeks, as a rule, 
compare favourably with other nations in this respect. As 
general practitioners in the art, they are always to be com- 
mended for imitation ; and they excel in certain of the more 
essential qualities that go towards realizing a noble standard 
of composition. But that conspicuous excellence is wanting 
that might have suggested to a contemporary a very high, 
and, in connection with striking deformities of expression 
(which in this case were also wanting), a very practical and 
thoroughgoing, literary ideal. 

So far, indeed, as Greece is concerned, critical science in 
Aristotle is not so far behind models of real excellence, as it 
is in the rear of such transcendent models as have appeared 
in England. The effect of such models, in stimulating 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

criticism and enlarging its area, will be determined by the 
way in which these models unite to form a catholic ideal. 
Even this chance, however, of accomplishing such an end 
will be defeated, should the critic happen to be out of har- 
mony with the scope of his materials, and busy himself with 
the exposition of certain orders of excellence to the exclusion 
of the rest. The greater, therefore, is the necessity for a 
catholic sympathy that shall confirm, and not subvert, the 
data, wdrich, in having brought near to them the requisite 
qualifications for their practical study are, pro tanto, brought 
nearer to an appreciable result — a sympathy that shall not 
falsify its claims in the moment of substantiating them. One 
only case there is, in which this sympathy with pre-existing 
effects may be dispensed with, that, viz., in which it is super- 
seded by the accident of a critic who exhibits the principle 
of these effects in himself. De Quincey, with unparalleled 
compass of sensibility, and with great analytic acuteness, 
might naturally have been expected to furnish a result in 
which the two might effectively be combined. To the 
materials that Aristotle lacked, he added the power that 
was to ratify them ; and, to such an extent, as not merely to 
supersede the illustrations of older writers, if by chance they 
had been orbicular enough in their sweep for an analysis to 
found upon, but to anticipate the latest phases of creative 
sensibility, if by chance these should not have been already 
developed. 

The appearance of De Quincey, in fact, constitutes the 
second momentum in the history of Style. That this momen- 
tum is again a crisis, not an epoch, is due to the fact that the 
possible advantages from a susceptibility so complex were 
neutralized, for purposes of an exposition that should, in any 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

sense, be final, by his defect of energy for pure speculation. 1 
So much, at least, of negative const ructiveness the world was 
justified in expecting, as would have shattered the confusions 
besieging the subject. These to have exposed would seem to 
have been suited to his peculiar ability and his peculiar mettle. 
And that with a result the more favourable, as one might 
have presumed, for the diffusion of critical knowledge, from 
his rare power of philosophical exposition. No difficulty that 
he was not qualified to divest of any preternatural appear- 
ance of complexity or abstruseness : no problem whose 
spurious simplicity he was not able to detect, and in its mis- 
chievousness to counteract, by exposing it in that light which 
was best calculated to reveal the lurking perplexity. But 
never was there a mind more fitted to mediate between phi- 
losophy and the popular good- will, that was more irretrievably 
cut off from such communication, by a want of sympathy 
with philosophy itself, precisely in those latitudes where a 
facile exposition was most needed for the populace, because in 
the general case most difficult to obtain from expositors, and 
most demanded, because in his individual case most easy to 
give. 

To this want so clamorous, to this crisis so bewitching, De 
Quincey brought nothing but a gleam or two of critical 
insight, and with a result that is naturally more tantalizing 
than the shortcoming of Aristotle. Against any such short- 
coming, as detrimental to' his general reputation, Aristotle 
had virtually pleaded in the blazing originality of the Organon. 

1 This refers not to anything De Quincey failed to do, but evidently to some 
positive misunderstanding of certain philosophic problems. The reader of De 
Quincey surmises that the special victim of this obliquity — but with no desire 
on the part of the critic save to state the matter truthfully, and disarmed as 
to the special misinterpretation by its very naivete — was Kant. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

And, which made the matter still more interesting, his power 
in the Organon shone not merely by itself, but by an invo- 
lution of itself, which upon the arena of Style might have 
been illustrated, in a way more comprehensive and theatrical, 
by De Quincey. "What Aristotle effected had this peculiar 
property, that it was effected by a movement of circularity. 
It was the judgment itself occupied upon the judgment ; and 
such a judgment, occupied on such materials, as to produce a 
result in which all men should virtually agree. Deny the 
perfection of the judgment, and, a priori, you impugn the 
truth of the system. Deny the truth of the system, and, a 
posteriori, you infer the weakness of the judgment. Accepting 
absolutely the thesis of Aristotle, you admit it as a criterion 
of the process by which you pronounce upon the logic of the 
thesis itself. Eefusing to accept the thesis as true, you 
imply, and are bound to produce, another explanation of that 
very process by which you have discovered that the process 
is other than that laid down by the theorist. By a parallel 
chance in Style, a writer like De Quincey is practically the 
exponent of the very principles which in theory he enunciates 
and commends. Now, in such a case, it is the Sensibility 
which forms the machinery of the involution. Lustre will 
unquestionably be given to logical science by beauty of Style. 
But this element is adventitious. It is not implicit in the 
conception of Logic, as perceptive sympathy is implicit in the 
conception of sensibility on such a scale as De Quincey 's. 
But Style, besides this element of sensibility, as inseparably 
a condition for scientific exposition, demands also the more 
palpable element of speculative insight. Where a science of 
Logic demands one element, therefore, an adequate science of 
Style demands two. And while Logic is thus its own expo- 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

nent, Style may be more illustriously so, because having an 
involution of scientific insight the same ' in degree as that 
of Logic, to which Logic, on its part, has nothing to answer 
in the way of sensibility. This sensibility was neutralized 
in De Quiucey for its scientific application (despite his fas- 
tidious thinking), by the want of that element, which, in the 
converse case of Aristotle, was neutralized by the want of 
the antithetic sensibility. 

The antithesis, which is thus illustrated, is equally true in 
relation to its two elements, whether existing in insulation 
from each other, or aiding one another in a scientific rationale 
of the whole field under review. What is easy to perceive is 
pro tanto easy to systematize. And what tends, by its very 
nature, to incarnate itself under universal distinctions is pro 
tanto easy to perceive. And here, as suggesting itself from 
the special contrast already indicated in the historical rela- 
tions of both sciences, a general contrast may be drawn 
between Style and Logic. Logic, in the Organon of Aristotle, 
was then first recognised as a fact, when it was first recog- 
nised as a science. Its phenomena were first matter of general 
observation, when their connecting principles were first 
formally arranged in their relation to its dominant principle. 
Style, on the other hand, has been long recognised as a fact — 
certain even of its distinctions are current and popular — but 
not earnestly and conscientiously as a science. And so long 
as its main distinctions remain neither explicated, nor shown 
in their propulsion, nor in their analogical relations, nor in 
their speculative significance, there is nothing to contribute to 
the science, much less the history, of the subject, which is 
also the history of the science. 

The final lesson, therefore, of the antithesis between the 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

two elements is that of their being mutually necessary to each 
other, and, as it were, in a certain order ; and precisely, for the 
science, in this order, that it must presuppose and follow the 
sensibility. Nothing, id deed, can be more self-evident than 
that a man should be unable to give the rationale of certain 
facts, when he does not perceive them, or does not perceive 
them to the extent that they ought to be perceived. How, 
for instance, should he expect to be listened to as a critic, 
who pronounces a certain image to be sublime, or the cadence 
of a certain passage to be harmonious, having no aesthetic 
perception whatsoever ? For in Style generally there may be 
discriminated three classes of effects: (1) those which the 
investigator sees in common with all, (2) those which lie sees 
in common with a few, and (3) those which possibly he sees 
to the exclusion of everybody else. In view of this, and 
relying upon the common ground of agreement which he has 
with all, it is his business gradually to extend the frontier of 
perception as far as he can — initiate the first class of readers 
into the secrets of the second, and the second into those of the 
third, along with such of the first class as have surmounted 
the difficulties of the second sphere. Unless, indeed, he has 
either something special to communicate, or some more con- 
cise or more fascinating method of communicating to the 
many what as yet is only enjoyed by the few, or of impress- 
ing upon all, from his station of authority, what is only held 
vaguely, there is no justification for the obtrusion of his views. 
But only as founding ultimately on a catholic sensibility, is 
he warranted in putting the matter in such a way as to secure 
interest for it, and attention for himself. Nor is this a 
method which belongs to these facts as an insulated class of 
facts. It is the method of the Fine Arts generally. In 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

Painting, for instance, besides the abstract science, which 
treats of the general divisions of form and colour, &c, there 
is the concrete science, which tells, according to the criterion 
of the sensibility, why certain individual effects are beautiful, 
or the opposite. Among such effects, it is the province of the 
most ordinary sensibility to recognise the agreeable impres- 
sion produced by clusters of scarlet berries upon a background 
of green. But a subtler question arises, why it is that such 
berries are more effective as seen on a tree with feathery 
branches, than they would be on a yew tree, for example. 
The reason generally is this : — The combination cannot fail to 
benefit in effect by the greater disclosure of the wood of the 
branches, as in the former case, and of the berries themselves; 
leaves, berries, and branches forming, first, a perceptible 
variety in material, next, one of colour, and, finally, a 
graduated series in regard to stability (as under the possible 
movements of the wind), which would not be available to the 
same extent in the case of the obscuring branches of the yew. 
But, specially, the difference is due (1) to the contrast of the 
perky or pensile character of the leaves, in the former case, 
with the solid and pendulous character of the berries — con- 
trast, the sense of which would be stifled in regard to the 
clotted or matted branches of the yew. And (2) in the case 
of the tree which allows for so much variegation in the super- 
ficial outline, and, as it were, so much general transparency, 
there is a chance of both leaves and berries being relieved 
against a common background. 

3. In thus discovering itself to be a Fine Art, Style is not 
to be distinguished from Logic, as if it were something 
superior, merely because it has something superadded. Any 
superiority which it can show must rest upon its value, 






INTRODUCTION. 17 

considered teleologically, Here, nevertheless, a practical 
superiority is claimed for Style. Not that its aim is abso- 
lutely higher than the aim of any art which proposes to 
redress the inequalities, and correct the infirmities, of the 
human judgment. No intellectual aim can possibly be so 
high. Besides, the improvement of the catholic judgment, in 
so far as it is corrigible by rules, involves an education 
generally for other purposes, by which Art itself must ulti- 
mately profit. But the lower art as to aim may yet happen 
to approximate more closely to its aim than the higher. The 
defence, therefore, which might apply to Logic, as a science 
that must be examined formally, before it can yield its full 
quota of practical results (notwithstanding that these results 
are concerned with rules whose application must already be 
presupposed), is irrelevant to Style. For while in Logic the 
alternatives are few, under which effects are good or bad, the 
particularization of which Style is capable admits of an 
indefinite number of examples of good or of vicious expression 
being given, having all the vividness of a circumstantial 
treatment and all the force of a general principle. It thus 
provides for a graduated improvement, to which Logic (as 
universally understood) makes no pretension. The reason of 
this is plain. In so far as Style is complex, it allows of a 
specific treatment in a degree unattainable by Logic ; — for the 
same reason a history of Universal Literature is evidently a 
much subtler problem than a history of Philosophy. But by 
Logic in what guise is this unattainable? It is as being 
formally too simple. A certain fallacy may be seen, and not 
only seen, but seen to come under a special principle and 
category of fallacy; and yet the man who sees it may be 
unable to bring it home to the man who uses it, and who per- 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

sists that liis argument does not come within that category. 
Did Logic seek to go beyond this, its boundaries would be 
inordinately enlarged, and it would have to descend to impos- 
sible details. The objection to it in such a case would be, not 
that it is too simple, but that it is too complex. And if the 
logician will descend into the region of material truth, he 
must not be disgusted to find that his researches are circum- 
scribed and arbitrary. It is significant, therefore, in this 
connection, when such a man chooses his illustrations from 
science: when he analyses foregone conclusions, and builds 
up formal results from acknowledged data. In this way he 
attains certainty : but it is at the expense of catholicity, and 
Logic becomes a science of particular, not of universal appli- 
cation. For the sphere, within which the universal science is 
practical, is limited. Nor can it become more practical 
without becoming special, and ceasing to be a pure science. 
Whereas the advantage for science otherwise, and for the arts 
generally, is precisely that they are special — that they are 
complex, where complexity, in relation to circumstantial con- 
clusions, is of use, and not complex, where complexity would 
disconcert or confound. And the advantage for Style is 
simply that the manifold details which aid its practical 
exposition may be gathered into unity in a system whose 
formal limits coincide with its material. 

To the application of a science which, on such a general 
view, promises a wider adaptation than even Logic, there can 
be no direct objection, save under that class of objections 
which founds on its special pretensions as an art. The sphere 
which is most sanguinely claimed for it is, of course, the very 
sphere from which it will be warned off most boisterously. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

But the fact remains, that it will always be treated implicitly 
as a science. And not the circumstance of its being practical 
will supersede all scientific analysis, but analysis will be 
summoned to direct the bent of the practical issues; especially 
if a loose and flippant criticism is likely to prevail, and train 
it into a low and sterile order of performance. Under ordi- 
nary conditions, a subject is cultured theoretically because it 
is obscure: net comporting with the ease and extent of its 
practice, or not tallying with the results which might be 
expected from what already is presumed of its elastic powers, 
or from the forging ahead of kindred subjects. And if it 
remains obscure, it does so in spite of the counterworking 
culture. But where the analysis applied to it is superficial, 
not merely is the first of these cases reversed, but both are 
reversed. And the subject is not only cultured in spite of 
remaining obscure, but is obscured by the culture itself. The 
attitude of such a culture might perhaps be expected to be 
hostile to a more decisive analysis, the tendency of which is 
inevitably to supersede the other where it is narrow, and to 
amend it where it is false. And all the more, that in such a 
case it tends to dissipate the feeling of satisfaction with 
partial principles accepted as universal, and subordinate prin- 
ciples assumed as ultimate and fundamental. But the nature 
and beauty of the theme are sufficiently a corrective of any 
such illiberal reception. It is always an advantage, when it 
is possible to shift the reproach which may attach to the 
manner in which a subject is treated upon the subject itself 
as necessitating that treatment. Especially is it an advantage, 
when the attractiveness of the subject will neutralise the 
odium which might otherwise settle upon the particular mode 
of the examination. Most of all, however, when the general 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

opinion is deeply prepossessed in favour of the question, as 
being of an interest so directly practical as that which is 
inseparable from Style even under the most abstruse mode of 
investigation. 

It is well for literary criticism, nevertheless, that it should 
be fortified in this way against vulgar misconceptions, whether 
of a popular cast or of a quasi-philosophic. Its adaptability 
for scientific purposes is indeed, to a certain extent, a reason 
why it should not be cultivated, in spite of the concurrent 
interest attaching to it ; and why a collision arises between 
the speculative bias and the practical. For here is a matter 
coming under the eye of the ordinary reader every day, and in 
so far qualifying him for a speculative interest in it in spite of 
himself. Yet, on the other hand, his very familiarity with it 
may, in spite of itself, and to the same extent, be a disqualifi- 
cation. The general question, however, with regard to the 
treatment of such a subject in such a fashion, becomes really a 
question of the right to treat it scientifically. Now apart from 
the fact that a disgrace attaches to a science undeveloped, 
similar to that which attaches to an individual or a nation 
that is undeveloped, it is to be observed, that it is not 
the absolute minimum of capacity which is addressed, 
but only those are addressed, for whom possibly the theme 
has attraction and intelligibility. A scientific treatment, 
besides, is its own justification. It is nothing more than 
an accurate examination of a mass of facts, directly or 
indirectly in subordination to the highest known principles. 
It can only be shown to fail, therefore, by a reference 
to its own criterion, and by being detected to be not scientific, 
i.e. not accurate, however pretentious in phrase; — and in so 
far as it is inaccurate and pretentious, it is also culpable, 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

because discrediting sound terms and principles. As to the 
reader, he need not feel insulted by the assumption of his 
ignorance on the part of the critic. That ignorance on this 
particular subject is accidental. And the critic reciprocally 
pledges himself to give his most polite attention, at that date 
when the reader shall find it convenient to enlighten him on 
any subject he may chance to be ignorant of. Being a poor 
man, he will, naturally wish to learn how to make money. 
Being an honest man, he will wish to have an insight into the 
way of making it fraudulently; the more especially that, being 
also inoffensive, he is disposed to find out how he can render 
himself obnoxious to society and to the law. And since he is 
farther a person of refinement, he will be seized with a desire 
to know upon what minimum scale of luxury a prison discip- 
line allows a man to live. There is, in fact, no limit to the 
amount of theoretical information which may be supplied in 
this way; unless, of course, the reader demurs to such insinua- 
tions, as impertinently seeking to exalt his erudition at the 
expense of his honesty. Be it so: let the reader be as ignorant 
of these subjects as he is of the laws of literary criticism; and 
let it be equally an insult to his honesty to suppose him 
acquainted with these laws when he is not. But because the 
critic does not insult the reader in assuming his ignorance, he 
is not bound to insult him by assuming his incapacity. He 
dare not do so, indeed, when presenting to him for his profit, 
in a systematic form, what in any other would be meaningless. 
No pillar of fine proportions exists but what may be broken 
and pulverised; with a difficulty, moreover, in pulverising, 
corresponding to the difficulty of chiselling into shape. But 
the lessons which might be taught regarding the relations of 
angle and mass, etc. are not to be learned after the process of 



2'2 INTRODUCTION. 

disintegration — else the sea-beach is the befitting spot for 
instruction. 

The superficial treatment which is popularly decreed to 
Style, is sometimes decreed to it also by pure science. Thus 
it is that, under certain aspects, philosophic thought generally 
is repudiated by science, as attaining by mere brain-carpentry 
to a visionary stateliness of proportion, while it is buffeted by 
the populace for a proficiency that is gained only at the 
expense of its being communicable. All mental activity, 
indeed, is justly at a discount with exact thinkers, where it 
does not yield accurate results. It is only by irreflective per- 
sons that such rare inaccuracy is tolerated as that of an 
analyst, who, having enumerated all the facts (perhaps four or 
five) which come under a certain classification, adds, " these 
and a score of others," when his enumeration is simply com- 
plete. If undetermined in cases where the channel is so clearly 
marked out for him, is he likely to be less so, when his survey 
is partial or confused from the very outset ? Philosophy itself 
is the first to sneer at such bungling. At the same time the 
case may appear to it only normal in the circumstances, and 
inevitable under a critical rSgime. And that it does not sneer 
in this particular instance, may be owing to the fact that it 
has already recorded its formal disapprobation of the entire 
critical method. While from analogy, therefore, philosophy 
might be expected to support criticism, we must not be dis- 
comfited if it should withdraw its support, just at that point 
where the interests of the two cease to be common, and repu- 
diate connection with it in its peculiar extensions, if not 
in toto, as cherishing principles incompatible with its own. 
The more the two orders of effects are studied, however, the 
more will it be seen that they resemble each other ; and the 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

more will the thinking appear rustic and provincial, which 
sets down the facts of literary science as trivial, and its prin- 
ciple as nugatory. And since the relations under which such 
a charge may be substantiated are these two — (1) of the pos- 
sibility of certain effects being analysed, and (2) of the possi- 
bility of their being communicated, it is in these relations that 
the validity of a scientific criticism is most happily vindi- 
cated. 

1. The case suggests itself as to the decomposition of rhe- 
torical effects being possible. Sensibility being granted, the 
question arises as to whether it is transformable into logical 
propositions. A question so simple might be met by a refer- 
ence to Art, as a branch of culture whose practical rules found 
on effects which are first experienced in the sensitivity and 
then brought into system — were it not that the reference 
might be considered insufficient. For it might be argued that 
the results in that section, in so far as they are parallel, are 
due to quackery or self-delusion, or at least are equally unin- 
telligible as to principle. Now the distinctive medium is the 
same for both — a self-consciousness that yields faithfully, on 
the one hand, to the impressions of sensibility, and readily, 
on the other, to the pressure of the analytic intellect, when it 
insists upon these impressions being reproduced. The part of 
the intellect, therefore, is to suggest the alternative possi- 
bilities that might separately, or in combination, have effected 
certain results. On equating and confronting these with the 
reproduced sensibility, it will be declared which it is that has 
been the sole or chief agent. Sometimes this takes place by 
a positive and immediate decision. Sometimes, under a less 
lively self-consciousness, it is brought about by the rejection 
one after another of all the alternatives except those which 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

are to be received as having instigated the result. The alter- 
native (if it is a single one) may happen to be indifferent, and 
may refuse to give any positive token of its having operated. 
Yet if the others shew positive signs of dissent, there is suffi- 
cient reason, in the circumstances, for accepting it as the 
influential agent. 

Such is the rationale of these effects, which (other things 
equal) will shew themselves in exact proportion to the subtlety 
of the investigator. And where no such results are found, we 
simply infer, not the inviolability of the effects, but the inep- 
titude of the analysis. That the presumed sensibility in any 
individual case is great, in proportion to the meagreness of its 
antecedents (as published through the scientific examination), 
argues not that the sensibility is more, but that the critical 
faculty is less. The very vagueness of exaltation with which 
the critic colours his exposition, so far from testifying to the 
exceptional degree of his susceptibility, may be simply the 
exponent of his obscurity regarding it. What is possibly an 
over-estimate of the delicacy of his individual impressions, can 
never become the measure of the real subtlety of the impres- 
sions. For an excess of sensibility in regard to certain effects, 
being purely subjective, is irrelevant to any purpose of philo- 
sophic analysis. It is with an objective sensibility, allowing 
for the collation of one man's impressions with those of 
another, that the science is concerned. Of two analysts, there- 
fore, his conclusions will have most weight, who has inter- 
preted his impressions most thoroughly. A critic may be very 
modest, as well as very honest, in declaring that the facts with 
which he occupies himself are too subtle for explanation. But 
he is certainly a nincompoop, if he does not see that that 
invalidates not in the least the chances of their being ex- 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

plained, except in so far as it is a fatal disqualification of 
himself, in point of that which is his sole recommendation in 
the matter. His assurances do not kill anybody but himself ; 
they do not frighten, much less wound people of ordinary 
respectability. The sole exponent of sensibility is analytic 
power. That analysis meets the sensibility, therefore, is no 
lowering of it, but is an expansion of the parallel energy of 
the analytic intellect. Eefuse the mind power to analyse, and 
you degrade it without exalting the sensibility. Admit this 
power, and you exalt it without degrading the sensibility. But 
the secret is that the indefiniteness of the sensibility (if it is 
indefinite) can only be shewn by at least assuming that it may 
be overtaken by analysis. It is either to be analysed, or not. 
If it is, this is all that is demanded. If not, then instead of 
the sensibility remaining simply at a point beyond the limits 
at which it may be pounced upon by science, it will be seen 
to mount indefinitely higher; since the more the analysis 
expands, the subtler will be the sensibility if after all it evades 
it, and the greater the indefiniteness of that of which confess- 
edly the analysis has not been able to bring back any 
account. 

The first alternative is the one to be concurred in for less 
speculative reasons. Not merely on a sentimental view, such 
as that of slighting the subtlety of the human mind in one 
sphere for the sake of magnifying it in another — which is fal- 
lacious as regards the first and futile as regards the second ; 
nor because it is superficial to suppose that a study of the 
mind, in any even of its most barren sections, can be dismissed 
superficially; nor because the division of effects into those 
which may be treated analytically, and those which may not, 
is arbitrary, making a distinction of kind, where there is only 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

warrant for one of degree ; but because the theory as to fact 
is so erroneous ; and to adopt the other correspondingly a 
necessity, from the impulse not so much to embrace what is 
psychologically true, as to reject what is psychologically 
absurd. The sensibility, we will assume, has yielded to cer- 
tain effects, and in yielding has conformed to them. But it 
could not thus have conformed to them, except by conforming 
to their principles, under an intellectual guidance more or less 
subconscious ; which principles of guidance are exactly those 
which it is the cue and the duty of the analysis to define. 
Nor again, if the principles which underlie the sensibility are 
not evasive, are they at least so anomalous as to interfere with 
scientific completeness. They only appear anomalous to a 
critic who either overlooks significant data, or else, having 
already confused the data by a false classification, naturally 
ascribes to them, by way of heterogeneousness, what is due to 
the inconsistency of the method. Ultimate difficulty of this 
order in science there need be none : so much barricade, so 
much material for scaffolding. Finally, therefore, the investi- 
gator need not be confounded by any multiplicity of details, 
in rising to the principles that will enable him to set and 
view them in their proper relations. The same complexity is 
common to all other sciences. It does not operate in the way of 
baffling artistic insight ; but is the indispensable condition of 
artistic culture, and of a culture that is extended in proportion 
as the details are numerous. 

2. The distinctions which the theorist on Style has to deal 
with present themselves first in the way of art, of art passive 
and intuitive or perceptional; they are next received by science, 
and their principles explicated ; and finally they issue again 
in the form of art, but this time of art active and militant, 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

ministerial and didactic. In this process science has a 
double function, reposing on an organic connection, first, 
between the actual sensibility of the investigator and his 
analytic capacity, and secondly, between the analytic recep- 
tivity of those he addresses and their potential susceptibility. 
It is with Style in this latter relation that the second problem 
is concerned, viz., as to the possibility of culture. 

The instructor has to see and point out not merely abstract 
varieties of expression, but these varieties under a limited 
number of relations as ultimately good or bad. Hence the 
farther classification of effects into those (1) which he along 
with his readers sees as bad or good, (2) those which he sees, 
but which they do not see, and (3) those which they see, but 
which he does not see, i.e. those which he sees them to see 
through a medium of fallacy or distortion. From the collision 
which may ensue between his sensibility and theirs, the 
dilemma arises : — on the one hand, it is needless to put in a 
scientific form what is already recognised as practical truth, 
and, on the other, what is not recognised, since that confes- 
sedly is transcendental or contradictory. For either the result 
which he seeks to establish is within the reach of the pupil, 
in which case it is useless to harp upon it ; or else it is out 
of his reach, and there is no common ground to go upon. 
Now, on a coarse estimate, it is quite possible to speak 
of certain effects as being perceptible to the learners in 
common with their instructor. But identically the same 
effects will not be perceptible to each, or to all in the 
same degree. A will represent an order of effects appreci- 
able only in part to some who appreciate B, a different order 
of effects, or a higher order like C ; and so by permutation all 
through — points seen by some in common with the expositor 



2S INTRODUCTION. 

being missed by those who are more at home in other sections. 
Some effects, therefore, there will always be repugnant to some 
among the learners, prior to the philosophic explanation. But 
besides this distinction, and apart altogether from the manifest 
value of holding in a precise form (with increased security for 
its practical application and for acquiring facts that move to the 
music of similar principles) what otherwise must be held in- 
definitely, it is to be observed, that the novice demands for his 
satisfaction a systematic rationale that indirectly shall confirm 
or correct the impressions which previously he may have 
formed. A rationale of such a kind has this value for the 
tyro, not merely that he may know what is right or wrong in 
the cases that are specified, but that he may decide to what 
extent his standard has been just. And for this purpose he 
requires in a formal treatise — which is supposed to transcend 
at least the hints of conversation and of desultory criticism — 
something more than the mere expression of a casual coinci- 
dence between himself and the critic. The needs of the case 
are not met by a simple statement, that such and such a 
passage is beautiful, etc. The vagueness of the assertion may 
really be in league with the reader's falser taste to deceive 
him, even in cases where, if specific reasons had been alleged, 
they might have been repudiated, and the plea resting upon 
them dispelled. A more definite statement would be made in 
describing the passage as luminous, etc. But the objection to 
the use of metaphorical equivalents is not thereby removed. 
Practically, indeed, such a term may be definite enough for 
the reader. But this can only be through the distinct logical 
meaning which he has already attached to it. 

A certain number of technical equivalents is thus presup- 
posed as known to the student, even in cases where his views 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

harmonise with those of the preceptor. Where the latter, 
however, is concerned to put the matter so as to provide for a 
rapprochement, in the event of being misunderstood, he will 
do his best fully to explicate his meaning. In cases, there- 
fore, where his sensibility is contradictory or transcendental, 
it clamours most of all for a scientific exposition. A meta- 
phorical expression may be not only vague, but sometimes 
unintelligible or paradoxical. To say, for example, that the 
following definition is brilliant in a literary sense, is only 
puzzling to the mind whose preconceptions of brilliance are 
those of vivid metaphor, or racy personality, etc. " I use the 
term negative condition as equivalent to the term conditio sine 
qua non and both in the scholastic sense. The negative con- 
dition of x is that which being absent x cannot exist ; but 
which being present x will not therefore exist, unless a posi- 
tive ground of x be co-present. Briefly — if not, not : if yes, 
not therefore yes." When it is explained, however, that the 
brilliance, on which stress is laid in this instance, is that of 
condensation (by means of the most exquisite simplicity), the 
synthesis of the two ideas becomes apparent. And a new 
flexion is given to the idea of brilliance generally, under 
which rapidity of execution is subsumed as an element of 
rhetorical prowess, and therefore to be admired, and of effect, 
and to be imitated. The figurative expressions, regarding 
which a sufficient definiteness of opinion prevails, are too 
general for the specification which criticism needs, as well as 
by far too limited in their number. The public, for the most 
part, conceits itself upon the recognition of the principle that 
reasons must be assigned for maintaining any proposition. It 
does not take much pains, at all events, to remember that 
it is specific, not general reasons, which constitute a valid 



30 INTRODUCTI 

ground of authority; and especially that this is the only 
ground of authority. It is too obstinately or too languidly 
content with phrases, which seem comprehensive, but simply 
are vague, neither ultimate, on the one hand, nor specific, on 
the other. Most of all, in reference to literary art, it needs 
peremptorily to be reminded that every statement which is not 
countersigned by distinct reasons is to be received only as a 
personal assurance. Individual opinion is virtually private 
opinion, though it were published in folio, and had run through 
fifty editions. There are occasions, doubtless, on which an 
unsupported assertion is quite allowable. But these stand in 
a class by themselves. And the reader need not hesitate to 
reject an assurance in cases where the point at issue is strictly 
critical — Le. admitting a balance of reasons, and calling for a 
determination to one side or the other — especially in the 
absence of any indirect support given to it by a general 
scientific cast of treatment. In the casual absence of such 
reasons he will respect the critic for his general judiciousness 
(as shown in the accuracy of his explanations, and the tact 
with which he selects and varies his examples, etc.), and 
give him the reflex benefit and prestige of any success which 
he has fairly won. For the critic, however, to take advantage 
of his acknowledged status, for bullying the reader into com- 
pliance regarding one solitary fact of which he cannot furnish 
the rationale, is the vulgar trick of the electioneering landlord, 
in a political contest, who uses his influence to bias the votes 
of his tenants. 

The sensibility of the communicator is, then, we will 
assume, virtually transcendental : since that is a condition for 
its being of use to others. The remaining condition, which is 
that it shall be intelligibly communicated, is fulfilled in its 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

scientific exposition, in so far as that is a guarantee of its 
unequivocal expression. Anything more, indeed, would be 
finical or officious ; in the spirit of the martinet or the pro- 
pagandist. We have thus in sensibility, acting concurrently 
with analysis, guaranteed the abnegation of all benefit to 
be derived from the monopoly of any faculty of aesthetic per- 
ception, except in so far as its results are incommunicable. 
And to that extent there is a warrant for individual sincerity ; 
since it is clearly not for the interest of any one to exhibit 
nakedly for imitation effects, which constitute indefeasibly 
the ground of a certain superiority on his part. Not that 
such a practice is necessarily disinterested. What the analyst 
aims at may be simply the advertising of his own peculiar 
mode of expression. But it is clear that strict analysis, so far 
from lending itself to promote that abuse, is hostile to it. 
Since the moment the critic supplies the rationale of certain 
effects (to whomsoever they may belong), he places the reader 
in a position to appraise them. It is precisely in the absence 
of a scientific valuation that impertinent collusion is possible 
on the part of the writer with his own individuality, — and a 
rhapsody on the art and its divine principles ; which art and 
which principles naturally find their illustration in the jack- 
anapes himself who commends them. 

For his own sake, therefore, the writer is bound to supply 
a rationale that shall tally with the results of each artistic 
perception, and to free himself from the reproach of an ex- 
position too servile in its glorification of a limited or spurious 
sensibility. Besides, his appreciation of effects, being possibly 
out of proportion to his executive power, may not have 
sufficient indirect testimony in the latter to win for it the re- 
spect which virtually it might deserve. On the other hand, 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

though his executive power may be considerable, it may be 
partial ; and narrow, in so far as it may be imitable. He is, 
consequently, bound to show that he has a wider appreciation 
of what is beautiful in expression than is registered in his 
own practice. The contradiction might quite well arise, of 
an analyst with inferior executive power, who yet shows a 
greater knowledge of effects, not on account of his superior 
analytic perception (which might easily happen), but on 
account of his wider sympathy with artistic effects, than 
another of greater intensive susceptibility. And a methodical 
analysis is thus demanded, not merely as a means of the 
proper interpretation of sensibility to the reader, or of recon- 
ciliation between two hostile modes of artistic perception, 
but through a blunt necessity, as the only test of artistic in- 
sight, whether existing in connection with executive sen- 
sibility, or not. 

It scarcely needs to be said that the sort of rationale which 
is here contemplated, is in every case a passive rationale ; and 
that critical science repudiates the conjuring up of factitious 
reasons, as on a level with the practice of the auctioneer who 
is paid on commission. It may be added that the philosophic 
method is the one to be adopted by the critic, were it for no 
other purpose than that of self-defence. The tendency of most 
readers is, on the one hand, to agree on indifferent matters 
with a critic who agrees with their opinions on other points ; 
and, on the other hand, to be ill-disposed on indifferent points 
to a critic who generally disagrees with them. It is his 
dignity as a critic which the scientific method secures ; since 
it enables him to free himself, in the one instance, from the 
charge of having failed through his own weakness or bad 
taste, and, in the other, of having succeeded merely through 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

favouritism. Finally, it is the tendency of the method to 
lower the apparent transcendence of the effects which are 
explained. An effect, unanalysed at two removes, is as trans- 
cendent to explication, and, prior to explication, is confounded 
under the same category of transcendence, as one at twenty 
removes. The critic is not in all cases, therefore, anything so 
very portentous in the matter of sensibility. Nor is he in- 
terested in concealing that many of his supposed new effects 
are only original, because for the first time formally stated, or 
explicated in new relations to each other, or from having 
been casually overlooked in a field that potentially is open 
to all, or having been perceived under circumstances of 
accidental facility yielded by proficiency in kindred sciences. 
As to the actual results arising in any particular instance 
from the attempted transmission of the sensibility, it is clear 
that no absolute maximum can be guaranteed, even under a 
scientific process. A man whose natural sensibility is unequal 
in keenness to his intellect will by his unassisted efforts be 
unable to rise in the appreciation of artistic beauties. Yet so 
great potentially is the energy of the human susceptibility, 
acting in connection with the pure intellect, that when the 
rationale of the effects is explained to him (which rationale 
he could not have devised, simply because for him the effects 
did not exist), the sensibility will mount towards the point at 
which he has apprehended the other. And if it moves up- 
wards by a fraction, the expedient is justified of colleaguing 
with it the analytic intellect; since without such a con- 
federate, even under the contemplation of the sublimest 
models, the sensibility would not have travelled by that 
fraction towards the point which, in spite of its weakness, it 
has reached. In the converse case, the sensibility being 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

great as the analytic force is small, it is the former which 
acts by way of stimulus to the latter. The result in this 
instance is that of a proper discipline. For the untutored 
sensibility, which is apt to be partial and to run riot in 
extremes, science points out severer beauties, and beauties 
simpler and plainer in their subordinate value. 

It is essentially a corollary from this, and in keeping with 
the whole tenor of the discussion, that the scientific method 
is the invariable regulator and guide, whether for the 
development of a sympathy with art where it is rudimentary, 
or for the moderating of it where it is in excess. The method 
of the instructor is not always positive, but often negative ; 
though always for the sake of some positive result. And 
that this discipline of his does not necessarily travel from a 
lower degree to a higher will counterbalance the objection 
which may be raised against the method on the score of 
elevating commonplace to the rank of genius, and so 
degrading genius to the level of what is too easily to be 
reproduced. This objection may now be added as supple- 
mentary to the other two. 

3. The more transcendental the effect that is to be com- 
municated, there is the greater necessity that it shall be 
explicitly communicated : but the more explicitly it is com- 
municated, the more chance will there be of its becoming 
mechanical. Now what the method has to do is not to work 
the lowest sensibility immediately, or even ultimately, up to 
the highest — any more than it has to do with training the 
dray-horse into the racer. What it aims at is a proficiency 
from stage to stage, and from an initial stage in each case 
to a final stage proportioned to the latent capacity of the 
individual. The proficiency which it seeks to establish is 



INTKODUCTION. 35 

mechanical, in so far as it is easy and complete. But it is 
just on that account organic ; since the effects are only repro- 
ducible in so far as they involve discrimination, and the 
discarding of vicious and less pertinent alternatives. Nor 
can that happen without the power to apprehend that this or 
that turn of thought under formation is or is not allowable 
on the score of relevance. What took place in analysing the 
presupposed sensibility is now taking place conversely in the 
application by the sensibility of what has been given to it 
through the presupposed analysis. When, therefore, a writer 
shows that he discerns what, in certain circumstances, is or is 
not relevant, he must be admitted to be in possession of the 
principle — a principle that being continually more under 
control works more rapidly, and therefore more organically, 
as manifested in its power to vary the form of expression ; 
making easy what it holds, and making easy in order to hold. 
Otherwise, there is nothing of the nature of a nostrum in 
this scientific treatment, any more than of encouragement 
to a quavering and paralytic imitation of the more sublime 
effects. 



In so far as the scientific method is the true method 
both of attaining and expounding the rationale of literary 
beauties, any illustration of its principle is not more a 
vindication of it than a condemnation of every other. Pro- 
perly speaking, it is not vindicated, but freed from mis- 
apprehension. Since its merit is not distinguished from 
the merit of any other method, in the same way as 
homoeopathy might be vindicated by one physician as 
against allopathy by another. It is not opposed to any 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

other as a more catholic to a less catholic, a more dignified 
to a less dignified, a more effective to a less effective. It 
is blankly the only method; and beside it every other is 
false. No absolute vindication of it, therefore, is needed, and 
no formal condemnation of any other. The final objection, 
however, is not one that applies to it as contradistin- 
guished from possible rival methods — the other two do 
apply to it in that sense — nor does its being rebutted 
imply anything against them. That objection is one that 
might be brought against any art, and amounts to the 
charge against the art that it is too practical — which is no 
objection whatever, but a clumsy compliment. The only 
objection, in fact, on that score would be the second, viz. 
that it is not practical; which the method evades by 
enabling learners to reproduce, and, where that is im- 
practicable, to appreciate, effects; distributing a greater 
excellence in expression generally, and an increased ap- 
preciation of effects that are not imitable. 

What concerns finally the positive results of the theory 
of Style — its practical relations to other sciences — may be 
summarily indicated. 

1. For Philosophy generally it may be regarded as a 
special introduction, like Logic and Grammar, either as 
preliminary or complementary to these. It is quite legiti- 
mately a propaedeutic, since it contains a special discipline. 
The other relations which it has to philosophy — its 
secondary relation, as illustrating in its own details the 
principle of philosophy, and its final relation, as possibly an 
integral moment of philosophy, and having in and for 
philosophic science an inseparable significance, as itself the 
principle of Critique — do not concern us at this moment. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

Psychology in general might be expected to reflect upon 
the science of literature a light, and that no intermittent 
light. But so much more chance is there of finding re- 
current phenomena — apart from all resorts to cross-illumina- 
tion from abnormal phenomena, which of themselves induce 
confusion — imbedded in literary expression, that there is 
more likelihood of literary science reflecting light upon 
psychology. Jfot otherwise did Logic stand in relation to 
psychology, as an offshoot from it, in certain respects, and 
derivatively an exponent of mental operations in spheres that 
showed themselves by no means so amenable to the laws of 
pure psychology as the facts of literature. The science of 
Style stands side by side with that of Logic ; and mediates 
between the abstract intellect and pure sensibility, which in 
turn is bounded by the anomalies that scowl and gibber on 
the outskirts of Medical Psychology. 

2. Within the sphere of psychology Art in general falls 
itself to be treated. And the science of Style, just in pro- 
portion as its principles are stated with authority, cannot fail 
to reflect a light upon the arts, any more than they re- 
ciprocally upon it. Especially it must add its testimony to 
that of Painting (an art that is infinitely further advanced), 
in regard to the analysis of Music, which, in so far as melody 
and the other concrete phenomena are concerned, is scien- 
tifically a blank. In this relation it is an isolated science, 
not organically connected with fundamental principles of 
psychology. 

But more decisively, as connected with those effects which 
appeal to the eye, on the one hand, and to the ear, on the 
other, literary science is central to all artistic criticism. It is 
not merely one among the branches of art, and (since it 



38 INTRODUCTION. 

falls to be taken into account in any complete survey of 
art), indispensable to scientific completeness. It comes to 
affect and modify the general conception of art, which, being 
true only in so far as it takes notice of all the varieties and 
in their leading ramifications, is headlong in acknowledgment 
of this its most catholic form. Literary science must, there- 
fore, radiate an influence upon art that practically will make 
itself felt, not merely in the suggestion of individual relations 
to the artist, under the rapprochement of the total science, but 
in moulding the judgments of artists of one class with regard 
to those of another. Supreme pity it is, when jealousy, the 
jealousy of irritation to inferiors, and of animosity to men of 
equal or of higher powers, is permitted to stifle the genial 
sympathy which should belong to art. The landscape painter 
knows himself, on the ground of high conception and of 
delicate execution, to be above the house-painter. But he 
feels much more inclined to sympathy with the latter, when 
his spirit is professionally roused : and that not because, but 
in spite of the fact that the acknowledgment of the nexus 
between the two arts is not so much due to catholic senti- 
ment as to a refined intellectual perception. Even if such 
jealousy were the rule, however, among artists of the same 
class, the widening of the boundaries of art, showing the 
inosculation of the various arts with each other, by extending 
indefinitely the opportunities for jealousy instead of fostering 
bad feeling is more likely to do away with it altogether. 

3. There is one sphere, finally, for which, as a preliminary 
study, the theory of Style is less of a scientific luxury, and 
more of a necessity, that, viz. of literary criticism ; for which 
it cannot fail to supply a rich fundus of operative principles. 
Owing to its scientific cohesion, it has an advantage in in- 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

fluencing the other branches of literary art that is not 
possessed by unsystematic criticism. And from isolated 
criticism — the criticism that is applied to separate works or 
fragments of works — it is still further distinguished by being 
removed above the element of personality ; and of personality 
in both its forms. In the first instance, it is spared the 
temptation, or the necessity, of criticising individual writers. 
And in the second, it evades such circumstances of the critic's 
own personality as the want of space, the necessity of a treat- 
ment that shall be popular, diffuse, and without regard to any 
scientific basis, and more specially, a position on a staff of 
writers, where, the general tenor of thought being prescribed, 
the critic is not entirely free, or where, if its tenor is pro- 
miscuous, he finds little reason for preserving consistency. 

Absolutely central to the sciences which control literary 
criticism Style must always be. Psychological distinctions 
manifest themselves here most appreciably. At no point, 
therefore, is its culture unattended by a reflex illumination of 
these sciences, which present such Pacific expansions of 
novelty for speculation. Itself forms the first in the order 
of analytical development ; the second being that general 
science which has for its main divisions Poetry, Philosophy, 
etc. The third is the science of Rhetoric, the synthesis and 
application of both; which may be viewed, in the latter 
respect, as a special science, in the former, and by way of 
comprehending the others, as equivalent to the theoretical 
generally in literary science. 



The sciences in this triad, while they are complementary 
to each other, and admit of a natural sequence in their 



40 INTRODUCTION. 

treatment, admit of being treated independently of one 
another. At the same time they all acknowledge the follow- 
ing method of division, (1) as a body of facts shown in their 
scientific cohesion, (2) as a body of principles shown in their 
ultimate significance, and (3) as a body of truth shown in its 
relations to praxis. Accordingly the immediate science 
divides itself as, in the first place, the Analytic of Style, in 
the second, the Logic, and in the third, the Synthetic of Style. 
With regard to which partition it is to be noted, in the first 
place, that the nomenclature is ambiguous, in so far as the 
method is concerned, that being in the Logic as much analytic 
as in the technical Analytic itself. In the second place, the 
Logic, with which this volume is engaged, usurps the place of 
the Analytic ; the order is transposed ; the inversion being a 
matter of scientific propriety and of convenience. The de- 
ductive portion, however, which the Logic represents, founds 
exclusively on the inductive, represented by the Analytic (by 
which indeed it was suggested). Does the Logic, therefore, 
contain more or less than is warranted by the other, it errs, 
certainly by inadvertence, possibly by fallacy. The Analytic 
of Style, along with the Synthetic, or third and final section, 
is for the time withheld. Not unnaturally the speculative 
treatment by itself may seem to exhibit a certain heartless- 
ness of abstraction. And to exhibit Style abruptly in its 
unity, its principle, is doubtless to make it somewhat ab- 
struse for the general reader. Nevertheless it is here, in any 
event, that the supreme nisus must be made. The Analytic 
is only secured, whether by anticipation or not, through a 
rationale of the fundamental principles of Style in their 
ultimate coherence — after which to pursue the theme into its 
separate sections is mere undress and holiday scramble. 



THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Of Style Generally. 
Section I. Of Expression Generally. 

1. 

That is a natural distinction which obtains between Thought 
as it exists in the mind per se — Thought pure and essential — 
and Thought as formulated in Expression. The distinction 
is natural in so far as it is first fundamental, and secondly- 
obvious. And it holds not merely of Thought generally, but 
of Thought in particular. It is true, therefore, of every result 
of mental activity in which Thought and Expression coexist ; 
what is contemplated being, not an order of cases in which 
the antithesis basks between two quasi-equivalent terms, of 
which the one is a spurious or precarious form of the other, 
but the universal case, in which it glares between the two 
relations of any term, considered in the one view as Expres- 
sion, and in the other as Thought. 

No antithesis can be conceived more universal, since it is 
an antithesis whose principle is involved in every expres- 
sion. No principle the most universal can be expressed 



42 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

which does not involve it. But this is not the entire truth. 
It has a distinctive mode of involution; superadded to the 
other and arising from it. Lord S. holds that Mr. Y. is 
the proper person to fill a vacant office of state. That he 
means what he says is one thing ; but that it implies some- 
thing else in addition is another, as is clear from this, that 
his assertion gives offence to Lord T., who presumably 
holds another view, since he contradicts the view of Lord 
S. And he seconds his contradiction by the avowal that 
Mr. X. is the person for the situation. But having avowed 
so much, he likewise implies (what is painfully disagree- 
able to Lord S.) that Mr. Y.'s claims are not for a moment 
to be put in comparison with those of his respected friend 
Mr. X. And if Lord S. cherishes animosity against Lord T. 
it will be not so much because it was asserted that Mr. X. 
was worthy of the place, as because it was implied that his 
candidate and prote'ge' Mr. Y. was not. If, indeed, you 
accept the expression of favour shown for his client by 
each of the noble lords, you will be convinced that both 
ought to have the place ; but if you accept his implication, 
you will see that both are equally unfit. Wherever, there- 
fore, a principle is expressed, it is not involved. And con- 
versely, where it is involved, it is not expressed. Now the 
peculiarity of our principle — that of the distinction be- 
tween thought and expression— is that the truth which it 
expresses is at the same moment also involved or implied. 
For since every principle that is expressed involves this 
principle, and this principle is now expressed, it follows 
that this principle involves this principle, i.e. involves 
itself. Q. E. D. Itself is involved by itself, and is itself an 
illustration of itself. The implication in the case we con- 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 43 

sidered first is not, of course, the same in kind with the latter 
implication, which is more strictly an involution. It was 
introduced merely by way of oblique illustration. On 
reading a proposition, its implication (in the proper sense) 
is the first to occur to any one. A higher reflection is 
needed to suggest to itself the relation which in addition it 
involves— the antithetic relation of thought and expres- 
sion— - as well* as the universality of that involution; and 
still a higher to perceive that this is not merely an abstract 
relation, but a concrete — a fact coincident with its own 
. principle, and a subject amenable to its own laws. 
Cor. — No distinction is held with the most lively chance of 
being realised, until it is seen in a concrete case. And 
generally such an illustration is hardest to bring to light, 
when it is most necessary that it should be forthcoming to 
vindicate the principle — in many cases to enforce it, in some 
even to make it intelligible. In this instance there is no 
such difficulty. The principle of the distinction is universal. 
Allowing for the extreme of abstruseness and complexity, it 
provides also for the extreme of simplicity. A simple 
thought, therefore, is as completely an illustration of the 
antinomy in its relation to expression as a complex. 



The independence in the mutual relations of thought and 
expression is one that practically holds true only of thought, 
and for expression is quite nugatory. For the latter the distinc- 
tion is purely an abstract, not an operative distinction. For 
the former, too, it is only practical within certain limits. 
The activity of thought must, as a rule, be enhanced and 
multiplied by permitting a formula, and with a result whose 



4-i LOGIC OF STYLE. 

magnitude is often inversely as the force employed. I do not 
mean simply in such a case as that of an' intellectual revolu- 
tion, whose influences radiate through a purely literary 
medium; since that suggests too advantageously for illus- 
tration the inseparable element of expression, and its value 
as a medium — but in an order of cases where both elements 
are combined in by no means a similar degree of harmony 
and purity. In a political revolution, for example, there is 
one constant and animating element of thought, whether pro- 
pagating itself by mere animal contagion of sympathy, or by 
sympathy of a more intellectual type. Which element is 
radically the same with that in the other case, and its con- 
ditions of success are essentially the same, and its mode of 
working is in principle the same. The prominent fact in this 
instance, as in the other, is the communication of the influ- 
ence, which again we will suppose to have radiated from 
a solitary individual. Thus between the origin and the 
result, the obscure origin and the vast result, there is, if we 
look forward, merely the fact of a silence ; if we look back- 
ward, merely the fact of a silence negated. Simply in his 
own person the initiator could not have affected what, by 
this negation of his silence, he has virtually effected. Other- 
wise he must single-handed have done the whole work, 
manned the batteries, marched in a body to the point of 
attack, etc. And just in proportion as he discarded expres- 
sion, would he become increasingly unable to fulfil his 
mission, when it was becoming increasingly necessary that 
he should fulfil it. The more thought is required, therefore, 
the more does expression as a coefficient mount into impor- 
tance. And if for thought, in certain relations, expression 
is indispensable, much more is thought indispensable to 



OF STYLE GENEKALLY. 45 

expression ; since only in and through thought is expression 

possessed of a living and elastic energy. 

1. Considered in their ultimate relation to each other, 
thought has a regulative value for expression. To say that 
expression has no significance apart from thought is the 
same thing as saying that it has no existence apart 
from thought: its very existence founds upon its being 
significant. For it is to be noted that this significance is 
not the figurative thing that is commonly represented by 
the term in relation to individual expressions. It is, in 
fact, the condition of their existence ; which existence, in 
its turn, becomes the condition of the derived significance 
as popularly understood. The meaning of the symbol 
" brand," for instance, is for us that of a billet under con- 
sumption by fire, and reduced more or less to a smoulder- 
ing red. So long as it preserves this form, every English- 
man understands what is meant. But let the letters be 
transposed, so that they shall read " bnard," and instantly 
for us it becomes unintelligible. Its total significance has 
not disappeared, however ; only its actual significance has 
disappeared. Its potential significance remains ; its precise 
significance for us now consisting in this that it is un- 
intelligible, i.e. not directly and immediately significant. 
For the savage in the same way a very simple sign may 
produce discomfiture, as before something which he can 
easily reproduce, but which he cannot interpret. That dis- 
comfiture arises not more from ignorance than from know- 
ledge ; it being the special aggravation of the case that to 
his perception of the sign he adds so much acquaintance 
with the principle of signs generally, as to decide that this 
sign is not accidental, but for somebody has an obvious 



LOGIC OF STYLE. 

interpretation that is denied to him. The occasion of his 
perplexity is the same with that of the art of the pro- 
fessional decipherer. In the one case, however, the 
possible significance of symbols mediates only to con- 
scious recognition of ignorance, in the other to its removal. 
2. It is upon thought that the positive and immediate 
significance of every expression depends. Expression has 
no operative value, except as being the medium of propaga- 
tion for thought ; a truth which holds particularly in rela- 
tion to expressions connected in a series, since that depends 
entirely upon the logical movement of the thought, an4 the 
associations inseparably connected with each expression. 
Of which express corroboration is found in the fact 
(apparently irreconeileable with the principle) that a mean- 
ing may be gleaned from propositions whose terms are not 
separately clear. The onus of the weak terms has simply 
been borne hj the stronger, which, but for their own 
integrity, must themselves have succumbed under the 
extra responsibility. The proposition has proved intelli- 
gible in spite of the casual unintelligibility of one of the 
terms, not in spite of the rule which demands the intelli- 
gibility of all the terms. Under the latter alternative the 
meaning of the proposition as a whole would not have been 
made out. And very specially it is overlooked, in arguing 
for the contradiction of the rule by this apparent exception, 
that in the final result the word is intelligible ; what is 
contemplated in the rule being that no term shall be 
introduced which may absolutely withstand the plenary 
power of a passage to interpret itself, a power of interpreta- 
tion that extends even over its obscure members. For 
there is a separate reason why any superficial canon, 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 47 

ordaining the exclusion of obscure terms, should be 
suspended. What the familiar terms of the proposition are 
commissioned to raise to their own status is invariably a 
term that is not absolutely unfamiliar, but simply is not 
yet quite explicitly comprehended. And what they do is 
to ratify, under a specific collocation of ideas, what had 
been left inchoate under other collocations, though pre- 
pared by these successively for that ratification. It is 
because the number of alternatives was limited, under 
which the unknown term could be understood, that it has 
been understood. And it is the other terms in the connec- 
tion which have been exactly the agency (for I represent 
them collectively, not individually as agents) in reducing 
these alternatives from incleterminateness to an operative 
and influential definiteness. That agency evidently is not 
the one to be overlooked. And yet it is the agency that is 
overlooked, in saying that the meaning has been reached 
independently of the connection between expression and 
thought. To deny the interdependence is in fact as 
rational as, in the converse case, to complain of the want 
of news in a public journal, in the forgetfulness of the 
circumstance that one had previously gone the round of all 
the contemporary papers within reach. 

3. Indirectly thought is always present in expression. 
This is what the mechanical reader chiefly misses — the 
suggestiveness of certain collocations of thought. For 
there is a very trenchant distinction between the man 
who reads with just enough intelligence to surmount 
the meaning of every proposition as it reached him, 
and the man who reads with active intelligence sufficient 
to explicate for himself the associations with which the 



48 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

terms of a proposition may exalt and reflect its primary 

significance. 

" She came to the village church 
And sat by a pillar alone ; 
An angel watching an urn 
Wept over her, carved in stone ; 
And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 
And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd, 
To find they were met by my own." x 

The situation is infinitely natural — the evasive quies- 
cence of the maiden, confronted by the eternal, aggressive 
masculine gaze — for else how could the boy know that she 
had lifted her eyes only once ? — and the disruption, in 
which, through a mere gleam, a quiver, all is for her 
undone, and the very quiescence has become for him 
treacherously significant. But the circumstances, but the 
associations — the fusion of sentiment at that exact point 
where the spiritual merges into the sensuous — the intensity 
of ritual suggestion, variously expounded by the solemn 
agencies of the ceremonial, mystically by the organ, 
articulately by the priest, and by the worshippers in a 
murmured unison that is half mystical, half articulate — 
confounded and overborne by the intensity of human passion, 
that ought to be in antagonism to it, but is not, does not 
strive with it, therefore, but leagues it subtly with itself, 
and so helps to concentrate and amplify the sense of com- 
munion — a communion equivocal, and founding expressly 
upon a truth equivocally applied, viz. Love — all this 
perishes as in a vacuum to the careless reader. In this re- 
lation, therefore, he may legitimately be styled mechanical, 
either from his want of the power of reflection, or from his 

1 From Mr. Tennyson's "Maud." 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 49 

want of the power of attention, interfering with the natural 
action of the other. Not that every passage will hear the 
same stress of reflection. The difficulty often is to avoid 
reflection. Indeed an evil motive in criticism, whether of 
partiality for or against a writer, where it does not manifest 
itself in tampering with the views expressed by him, will 
manifest itself in tampering with the expression of these 
views — in redding for profound what is superficial, and for 
superficial what is profound. And the rationale of the fact 
which is so vaguely expressed in saying that a man sees in 
the writing of another more or less than there is to be seen, 
is precisely this, that unduly he masses and brings into 
relief, or fails duly to integrate and gather into a focus the 
collateral suggestions of the text. 
Cor. — No distinction more visionary could be drawn than 
that which it might be attempted to draw between the 
organic in expression and the mechanical. Such a distinction 
(if it has any meaning at all, apart from that indicated in § 1) 
can only take effect in relation to the movement of full-blown 
propositions. Now it is here precisely that the power of 
expression in the way of oblique suggestion is most valuable, 
for reciprocally controlling and modifying the meaning of the 
constituent terms in a proposition, so as to preserve its organic 
unity. Let us, for instance, examine this proposition: " The 
prejudices of society have not been found directly to aid its 
progress." If we subtract the word "not" from the pro- 
position, we shall have committed a most comprehensive 
felony upon the tenor and direction of the thought. It ran 
from east to west : we have made it run from west to east. 
But if, reintroducing the "not," we expunge the word 
" directly," we shall effect substantially the same result. The 



LOGIC OF STYLE. 

well-being of a state, would doubtless be increased, if that 
malignity of prejudice were absent, which often springs from 
local or individual rivalry. Yet that may help to breed com- 
petition and higher activity in branches of trade that else 
might languish. And so prejudice does not absolutely im- 
pede the progress of society, but indirectly abets it Other 
flexions might be given to the proposition, such as that " im- 
mediately," or " finally/' or " unconsciously," or " impalpably," 
or " paradoxically," or " naturally," " the prejudices of society 
have been found to aid its progress." But always another in- 
flection is given to the sense. Expressions the most contra- 
dictory, such as "paradoxically," and " naturally," may on 
occasion be used indifferently; and expressions like "un- 
consciously " and " impalpably " (where the one is as it were 
the specific form, the other the generic) may be substituted 
for each other. But there is no expression, however faintly 
differing from another, for which, in precise writing, most 
circumstances are not crucial in applying its distinction from 
that other. 

In regard to which it may be observed, that the new 
specific terms that are continually being made do not tend to 
supersede the old, any more than they do in the mind of the 
individual writer — old terms reve al ing themselves to his mind 
more explicitly and completely, and new terms filling up 
lacunas in thought hitherto unsuspected- In both instances 
the movement is universal, that of a tide, not of a wave. And 
it is only by relation to the terms of older standing that the 
new are enabled to maintain their position. The old is not 
therefore indefinite, because the new happens to be specific, 
nor the new incomplete, because the other is more universal 
The coarse and grotesque way of interpreting innovation in 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 51 

expression is that all fresh terminology supersedes the ancient, 
and is useless ; further that it tends unnecessarily to multiply 
terms, and is therefore harmful, which is precisely to say 
that the needle tends to supersede the chiseL Meantime the 
value of the needle generally consists in this, that it does not 
do every kind of work, and in particular that it is not avail- 
able for the work to be done by the chiseL And to put a 
stop to the variation of terms before the proper limit, is not 
merely to suppress the immediate forms of variation, but the 
possible ramifications of these in arrear. For every new 
thought there must arise a corresponding expression. Nor 
can any other principle be laid down, by which the number 
of ideas shall be increased for every term from this limit to 
the abracadabra or ideal formula, which shall embrace ex- 
plicitly the whole cycle of knowledge and being, the sum of 
things actual and possible. An economising of terms has no 
use apart from an economising of ideas. But such an ex- 
pedient as that of diminishing the number of terms would 
never reduce the sum of ideas. If it could, it would do so 
wrongly. The only real economy that is possible in the matter 
is in the suppression of the riderless and supernumerary 
among terms. And so it is that economy is in exact 
harmony with the converse canon, viz. that every expression 
shall have its independent thought. To multiply expressions, 
therefore, for a single idea is not to enhance the chances of its 
being distinguished, but to defeat them ; and in this case to 
violate the canon of reciprocity by sheer blankness of mean- 
ing, as in the other by sheer midtiplicity of interconfounded 
association. Hence, and on both sides, the essential vice of 
modern slang; which may be described generally as the 
tendency, on the one hand, to elevate expressions drawn from 



52 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

the vulgar quasi-professional classes, etc., and on the other to 
degrade expression, by drawing into a comical quasi-figurative 
reference terms of ordinary and even catholic significance. 
Thus, on the one side, we have a purposeless multiplication 
of terms for such acts as stealing, running away, etc., and on 
the other, a burdening of certain terms, such as " governor " 
and " lot " (e.g. " a queer lot " applied to an individual) with a 
superfetation of meanings. This happens obviously within 
limits. Since no possibility of leisure, no possibility of 
malice, could ever enable an individual or a number of in- 
dividuals to multiply terms for every thought ; and no 
possibility of indolence or of preoccupation can prevent men 
from fitting up most of their ideas with an adequate ter- 
minology. But excesses and defects do exist more or less in 
all languages to disturb the just equilibrium between the in- 
novations of language and the stagnation of thought. In so 
far as these tend to neutralise each another, thought is kept in 
activity. Otherwise, in individual instances, they constitute 
separate sources of imperfection — such as might be found in 
polyandry superadded to polygamy. 

3. 
Expression is to be regarded as coinciding with thought ; 
but inasmuch as every thought (with certain obvious excep- 
tions) is complex, a dual or equivocal relation arises for ex- 
pression, that, viz., in which it corresponds wholly to the 
thought, and that in which it corresponds to it only in part. 
This happens constantly in composition, where terms are used 
now in relation to their generic meaning, now in relation to 
their specific. One may say, for example, that " curiosity led 
a man to watch the movements of the celestial bodies," 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 53 

where he means simply "the desire of knowledge," dis- 
engaged from the element of pettiness and gratuitousness 
which is implied in the actual statement. Or again, he may- 
say that " the desire of knowledge induced a man to open 
his friend's writing-case, and examine his correspondence,' , 
when he means curiosity. In the one instance he says too 
much, in the other too little; and in both cases we know 
analytically by how much, the measure of excess in the one 
being identically the measure of defalcation in the other. 
But the novelty is this, that it is by the very inaccuracy of 
the statement that we are able to correct it, and by substitut- 
ing the one reciprocal for the other to give our amended 
version of the truth. The principle of specification has been 
abused in the one case, and neglected in the other. But 
virtually it has righted itself. And by way of compensation 
its value now mounts into its place and is realized, when we 
present the truth in its authorized form. Thus it happens 
that expression may be represented in two aspects, under the 
one of which it is exceedingly vague, and under the other 
exceedingly definite. A charge of verbalism, for example, is 
a charge of meaninglessness. And, on the other hand, ex- 
pression is regarded as the seal and redundance of faithfulness 
in all communication. The one founds upon the indisputably 
arbitrary nature of signs considered in themselves, the other 
on the indisputable teleologic value of signs. Convertibly 
thought and expression are the same ; a virtual coincidence 
being secured, whether the expression is something more, or 
less, or else, than the thought. But their coincidence may be 
actual as well as merely virtual. And hence the relation of 
expression to thought is equivocal. 

If every term as it is met with in general writing were 



5-i LOGIC OF STYLE. 

to be understood always in its special incidence, and not 
with reference to its proximate terms, its genus and 
species, it would begin to fluctuate in its meaning ; that 
meaning would begin to be shared by other terms, and it 
itself by degrees might (quite apart from the dialectical 
tendency of language) drift into other relationships, and 
become the bearer of successive associations widely differing 
from each other. That, for the most part, the phrases in 
present use have not yielded to such a tendency, is to be 
ascribed to the fact of the counter-tendency to revert after 
deflection to the original signification. These terms pre- 
serve in a double sense the consistency of language, both 
in themselves, and for others, by acting as centres of 
stability amid fluctuation. But occasionally they them- 
selves fluctuate ; and in so far language is elastic and not 
rigid ; as, with regard to the essentially unstable terms, it 
is elastic, not ductile. It gains its virtual immobility by 
seasonable fluctuation. But that literary effect varies, not 
in relation to language alone, (and, for example, the very 
contradictory expression of w r hat one means is a form of 
wit) and bears an equivocal relation through what is itself 
essentially stable, may be illustrated from mathematics, 
which hitherto has shown itself the most adamantine and 
inexorable of standards. Fifty pounds are fifty for the 
banker and for everybody. But the literary significance 
of fifty is different from its financial. Three may be more 
significant. But also fifty may be more significant than 
three. This significance then is variable, and affronts 
arithmetic, first by discarding its principle of proportion, 
and, in the next breath, by coming back to it. But note how 
for all that it is indebted to the arithmetical immobility. 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 55 

For if the number fifty were not always the same, whether 
existing at a premium with regard to three, or at a discount, 
who could guarantee that the one, which had stood up with 
alacrity to discount the other, should not have transmuted 
itself into some third number when the time came for it to be 
discounted ? The invariability of the number, therefore, which 
is the safeguard of the banker against embezzlement by his 
clerks, is precisely the safeguard of literary significance. 
Cor. — Writing generally consists in a variation of the two 
styles of absolute precision and merely relative precision. And 
so long as that variation is preserved, it is to a certain extent 
indifferent in individual cases which style is observed. The 
ideal absurdity would be to use the generic and the specific as 
convertible where they are not, and to neglect using them as 
convertible where they are indifferent. To say, therefore, that 
it is indifferent which standard is used, does not imply that 
the privilege of having alternate standards is to be abused. A 
writer, from extreme prepossession or carelessness, may use a 
generic term for a specific, and vice versa ; so as to bewilder 
his readers by ambiguity, or even absolutely to mislead them. 
In this case the alternative standard becomes simply pestilent. 
A second order of cases is that in which it is really indifferent, 
as to the sense, whether the expression is absolutely precise 
or not. Here there is a legitimate use of the standard as sup- 
plementary to the other. But thirdly, there are occasions on 
which this standard becomes virtually or even absolutely a 
complementary standard. Thus, for example — what suits emi- 
nently the elliptical method of poetical expression — it is so in 
the lines : — 

Like form in Scotland is not seen, 
Treads not such step on Scottish green — 



56 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

a rare truism in itself, since notwithstanding that certain types 
of gait might accompany certain types of figure, everybody 
knows that no two men have the same shape and carriage. 
But for that very reason it is seen that something more is 
hinted than the truistic fact — a comparison within the com- 
parison, and an expression of pre-eminent or paramount dignity 
associated with form and step. Again the antithesis of the 
idea may be employed to convey a transferred meaning. Thus 
in the expression : — 

Fallen heroes want 
Yonder in heaven their crown of blessedness 
Till the last bondsman clasp unfettered hands 
O'er the last slaver whelm'd beneath the wave, 

the word " bondsman" is taken to designate a special agent 
in a significant circumstance, where ex hypothesi the individual 
is no longer a bondsman. To such an extent does the prin- 
ciple of expression sublate itself in its literal form (and quite 
apart from every metaphorical usage of terms) for a relative 
and virtual intelligibility ; and in special cases by hinting the 
substantial truth where more is expressed, by integrating it 
where less, and by rectifying it where the reverse is expressed. 

Section II. Of Style in its relation to Expression. 

4. 

Style is the Differential in Expression : and this, which 
exhibits it in its most characteristic reference, is its scientific 
definition. 

In relation to Style, expression, which tends indefinitely 
to extend or differentiate itself as regards thought, must be 
assumed to have reached a limit. It is very clear that Style 
is not the differential of expression, in the same way that 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 57 

expression may be regarded as the differential of tli ought. 
(1) Expression does not reach a limit in order to allow style 
to take up the process of specification. Such a limit would 
be arbitrary ; and it would be unjust to expression to lay 
down any terminus at which its distinctive principle was to 
be superseded. (2) Style does not consist in stray specifi- 
cations made by individual thinkers. That would be unjust 
to itself. These casual terms can only show themselves in 
obedience to the general laws of differentiation; and in so 
far as they do that they belong to expression, not to style. 
It is distinctly a proof of this (what might appear in direct 
contradiction of it) that every expression in use at any 
period must have been struck out by an individual. Since 
precisely to the extent that it was necessary would it be 
adopted, with a rapidity that would confound the indivi- 
duality of the discoverer. Of innovation in terminology 
only these four kinds are possible, (1) that which is re- 
quired and is adopted, (2) that which is required but is not 
adopted (not being published widely enough for immediate 
adoption), (3) that which is not required but is adopted, 
and (4) that which is not required and is not adopted. These 
classes, however, reduce themselves to two, the first and the 
last ; since the other two tend to right themselves, and in 
part by neutralising each other. Now (with regard to the 
fourth) there are many terms that sprout up in the spor- 
tiveness of correspondence, or in the heat and condensation 
of journalism, that are literally ephemeral. And connecting 
themselves with no catholic principle of expression, they 
cannot be viewed as possibly approaching a thing so organic 
as style. As to the terms of the first class, it is clear that 
they are few, and can never serve as the exponent of a 



58 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

writers individuality. Besides, being engrossed by other 
writers, they lose, except to the antiquary, any value as 
having been originated by him ; the very permanence of 
literature, which guarantees the perpetuation of the term, 
gainsaying its permanence as affecting our estimate of the 
originator. It is to his use of the common items of expres- 
sion that a man owes his individuality. The limit which 
expression is assumed to have reached for style is not, there- 
fore, a limit at which innovation in expression begins ; which 
would be to extend the limit that ex hypothesi is final. That 
process is the very one which we must assume to have 
ceased. Tor now the movement for style is precisely in the 
opposite direction. Accordingly to differentiate expression 
is obviously not to distribute it by diversification of indivi- 
dual expressions, but (3) to redistribute it, by combining and 
unifying a variety of these under a definite idiosyncrasy. 
The individuality in the one case is that of a fact, in the 
other that of a person — of individuals as against individuals, 
writers against writers, speakers against speakers. Formally 
the principle of the one is variety, that of the other unity. 
Only style tends also to differentiation in a mass, with a 
resultant variety of styles proportioned to the variety of 
individual expressions. 
Cor. — The relation of style to expression is one of complete 
interdependence. Expression being distinctively the basis of 
the other, there is no point in its extension by which style 
does not profit ; being the sphere for the exhibition of style, 
which raises the potential in expression to the actual, there 
is no extension of style by which it does not profit. All that 
is assumed is, therefore, a certain totality of expression. 
Which totality, acting, in the second place, in combination 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 59 

With psychological tendencies, is determined, in the third 
place, to a known variation and recurrence of certain forms of 
expression, forming in itself that totality of expression, 
in its extent or intensity, which we call a man's style. 
This is properly illustrated in the relation of the classical 
and Saxon elements in the English language. It has 
been shown (§ 2, p. 50) to be gratuitous and unscientific to 
treat the former element as if by possibility it could supplant 
the latter. Together they form a totality of expression, in 
which generally (1) the Latin (as the typical exoteric element) 
is the differential of the Saxon. " World " for example has its 
definite significance, generally considered. But what of it in 
special relations— in relation to totality as compared with its 
own local sections ? In that case it is " cosmopolitan." Or 
what of it again by way of relation to the transcendent whole 
of the universe, or as equivalent itself to that whole ? It then 
becomes " sublunary," or " cosmical." And through the com- 
bination of these two elements it is that the genius of the 
English nation is realised in that special literary form which 
we call its "idiom." Out of that relation, however, arises 
another, in which each element becomes a separate function, 
or a separate aggregate of functions. Thus, roughly speaking, 
the Saxon takes cognisance of facts, the Latin of principles. 
More particularly, the Saxon is concerned with the domestic 
and the catholic sensibilities (in a nation so keenly alive, on 
the one hand, to the tendernesses, and, on the other, to the 
sublimities of human sympathy as the English) and the Latin 
with the abstract relations of things. Thus (2) in regard to 
the totality of expression, each becomes a co-differential with 
the other. Each represents a leading psychological distinc- 
tion. Latin, as being the element which is not the vernacular, 



60 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

and being superinduced upon the other (as the thinking of the 
adult is superinduced upon the thinking of the child), becomes 
valuable not for its being casually or immediately the nega- 
tion of popular thinking, but positively for its catholic 
precision, which is the cardinal test and necessity of a 
scientific diction. On the other hand, the virtue of our Saxon 
lies in its simplicity, which is the necessity of a poetical 
diction. A writer's general bias will, therefore, be determined 
by the proportion in which the two elements mingle in his 
expression. For evidently it is a proportion, in which neither 
is found exclusively. And hence (3) the Latin and the Saxon 
become each reciprocally the differential of the other. If, in 
average use, these two elements bear a certain proportion to 
each other, then evidently the writer who uses more Latin 
than other people has that for the differentia of his literary 
manner, — the quantity being supposed equal in all cases, he 
will use less of the Saxon. And similarly in the converse 
case. A more natural case, of course, is that of subvarieties in 
these elements. Thus, of two writers having a poetical and 
philosophic diction, one has in addition a scientific bias ; that 
becomes his differentia, not, however, simply in relation to the 
Latin compound, but to the whole complement of his ex- 
pression. Tbe Saxon is still a co- efficient to discriminate 
that complement from any other; what was expressed in 
the previous instance by extent, being now represented by 
intensity, as measured by recurrence. 

5. 

Since Style is to be viewed, first, as concerned with the 

relation of each individual writer to the totality of expression, 

it is concerned, secondly, with the relation of the totality of 

writers to the totality of expression, and mediately, in the 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 61 

third place, with the individual in relation to the totality of 
writers. Each style thus becomes reciprocally the differential 
of every other. To speak mathematically, the style of every 
writer represents some function of every other. 

As a literature grows, it becomes obvious that the ten- 
dency of its writers in succession is to diverge from each other. 
But at a certain point it begins to be suspected that the 
mode of the new writers is in part a reproduction of the old. 
The principle of variation, in fact, is limited. Moreover, it 
tends to a limit, viz. the circumference of all variations, 
which is itself a new variety. And under that, either as a 
fact realised, or as a possibility, the separate orders of ex- 
pression are seen to be vitally connected with each other, 
in so far as they are efficients of this common manifesta- 
tion. The process is threefold. (1) The resultant varieties 
may be regarded independently, as antagonistic and com- 
plementary to each other. (2) From their limited number, 
and the common relationships existing among all, they tend 
to intersect and coincide with one another. (3) These 
tendencies are combined, so as to involve an antagonism to 
each, and a coincidence with all, in a variety which com- 
prehends, and therefore supersedes all the rest. In this 
latter case, which is the most interesting and important, 
the relation of the writer is equally one of immanence and 
transcendence. This transcendence is not that which A 
exercises over B because he has so many more effects at 
his call ; since B, in respect of 'that which is immanent in 
himself, transcends A. It is because the great writer is 
not transcended by any that he transcends all. And though 
his transcendence founds on the same basis as theirs, viz. 
immanence, that immanence is not of the ordinary type, the 



62 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

exclusive and special immanence of a distinctive range of 
expression absolutely his own. The ordinary immanence 
may be of two kinds, that which is common to all or that 
which is peculiar to each. In this case it is neither, but 
that which is peculiar to one in so far as it is distributed 
separately among all. Other writers of individuality, when 
the sum of all other individualities is taken, have some- 
thing to add to it. To that sum he has nothing to add : it 
is identically his own distinction. If it is a sum of 25, in 
which A, B and C have each a share of one, it is clear that 
he transcends each by 24. Or if X happens to travel in the 
same way as himself, and musters up 13, him he transcends 
by 12; i.e. the gross result being taken, otherwise his 
superiority to X travels in a geometrical ratio. The ideal 
thus formed is no abstract ideal, but one that is essentially 
concrete, one in which all the elements are resolved. It is 
not meant, for example, that every peddling idiosyncrasy is in- 
cluded in the individuality of Shakspere. But those elements 
of expression are included like the wit of Ben Jonson, which 
are possessed by certain poets in special measure, and 
which go to integrate a totality of their own. And 
especially those pure and formal elements, which in some 
degree are possessed by all true poets, structural felicity and 
modulated intensity of expression — in simple terms, mas- 
tery of quantity and quality. How the catholic behaves 
when united with the individual, may be seen (in a dialec- 
tical shape) in relation to nationality. What we mean by 
a classic, is a writer who represents adequately the genius 
of his country, with sufficient force superadded of his own 
to expound that genius and make it interesting. It is only, 
therefore, by coalescing with a certain degree of force in 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. bd 

individuals, that the genius of a nation becomes a co-efficient 
for its own illustration. It is quite another question to 
what extent the appearance of such an individual may be 
accidental, and whether it is the increase of the national 
intelligence, or the increasing richness of national charac- 
teristic, that is the immediate occasion of that illustration. 
I assume simply that the national bias will be found 
directly represented in its literature, apart from this as a 
possibility, that the very earliest literature was not pre- 
served just because it was simple, and reflected no national 
complexity of character, while only such legends were pre- 
served as were connected ex hypothesi with the doings of 
the race. But this very glorification of national tendencies 
and national interests, defeats itself by demanding too 
necessitously an increase of individual power. For obvi- 
ously the supreme poet or the supreme thinker is not 
national, but reflects the catholic in all nationality. But 
his genius is not therefore anti-national. It is the danger 
of a partial acuteness to conceive that a catholic genius is of 
necessity opposed to a national. An English writer may, 
in the first instance, by accident have the genius of a French- 
man.; in which case, of course, he is anti-national. Or, 
secondly, he may have a truly catholic genius, in which 
case his genius would infallibly be anti-national, but for the 
chance of its coinciding, in the third place, with the 
national genius, the nationality to which he belongs being 
the most catholic. The common elements are glorified by 
other nations in varying degrees, but by this in so perfect 
a degree, as to become indefeasibly its differentia. The 
catholic poets, the poets of intensity and compass, are those 
of England ; the catholic thinkers, the systematic thinkers, 



64 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

are those of Germany. And, as notoriously Shakspere is 
the unique catholic poet, so notoriously Hegel is the unique 
catholic metaphysician. Absolutely catholic intellects they 
are neither of them, since both are only partial ; and abso- 
lutely catholic only that nation can be pronounced which 
produces an intellect that shall be equally philosophic and 
poetical. But evidently it is unjust, it is a perversion, to 
exalt the individuality of either, as if it transcended the 
national genius by its catholicity ; when it is expressly as 
being an outcome of that genius that it is catholic. Unjust 
it is to the individual, since it represents his catholicity as 
anti-national, which it is not, and to the nation, since it 
represents as accidental what is essential. 
Coe. — The function of a Logic is to give universals by 
eliminating particulars. That which is common to all men 
concretely in the midst of diversity, is the logical faculty; 
that which is common to them, in spite of their common 
logical faculty, is abstractly their diversity. Logic proper has 
to deal with the first universal. And a Logic of Style is con- 
cerned with the second, a universal as complete and scientific 
as the other ; since every man has a differentia, as well as a 
ground of community with other men. This universal is 
Mode; a man's style being his mode, his manner, his 
mannerism. The general questions concerned with this mode 
are three. (1) As to the possible varieties of style which 
may be possessed by any writer. In this respect he may 
have a very complex differentiation ; from the philosopher, for 
example, he may be distinguished by being also a poet, and 
vice versa ; or from the poets and philosophers by some 
special poetical or philosophic faculty ; or, through the same 
faculty, from those who like himself are both. (2) As to the 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 65 

possible fluctuations in individual style within certain limits. 
Such may be produced by changes in health, by varying 
degrees of interest in the subject, or of aptitude for particular 
modes of expression, speaking and writing. (3) As to the co- 
herence of his literary manner with his manner as a whole ; 
how far that is controlled by his temperament, and consists 
with his personal habits and social bearing. 

6. 

The particular varieties of literary effect, with whatsoever 
complexity they may manifest themselves, rest notoriously 
upon a fundus of natural sensibility. This appears in three 
forms, (1) as creative, (2) as reproductive, and (3) as critical 
or negative. 

That the same kind of power should be possessed by 
more than one man, does not make it less original, or what 
is meant specially by " genial." It is creative in so far as it 
is not communicable. And causing in the reader a desire 
to reproduce it, in the same breath it shows him his 
impotence to do anything but imitate it. For the 
distinction between reproduction and imitation is that 
the first obtains a revival of the principles of certain 
orders of effect, and the second merely a resemblance 
to certain isolated effects. And what imitation is ordi- 
narily to reproduction, reproduction is in this case to 
creation; and accordingly, since ex hypothesi these effects 
are unique, any attempt to reproduce them falls to the 
level of imitation. For there are two orders of creative 
sensibility, which may be described as ^the faculty of 
developing the possibilities of expression. On the one 
hand it manifests itself as the power to devise new forms of 



66 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

combination "and simplification, etc., and on the other to 
mature new orders of individual effects It is, for example, 
an approach to the expansion of style in the latter aspect, 
to produce a peculiar mode of fanciful or humorous ex- 
pression. And to the expansion of it in its former aspect, 
it is a contribution, to discover a principle of transition by 
which the general sense of elegance or economy is en- 
hanced, at the same time that the demands of the case for 
fulness are adequately met. The former element tends 
sometimes in the direction of eccentricity ; which is in any 
case revolting, because it is either unaffected, in which case 
it is monstrous, or assumed, in which case it is insolent. 
But the eccentricity, which immediately I speak of, arises 
just from attempting externally to reproduce what is 
absolutely original in another man's expression, and so fall- 
ing into grotesque travestie. And the tendency is the more 
dangerous, because the result is for many people so much 
more striking than quieter and more perfect effects. Hence 
its essential vulgarity, which consists, not in preferring 
what is loud to what is unobtrusive, but in preferring what 
is simply clumsy to what is forcible. For there is a sphere 
in which higher effects are attainable, and with the 
additional privilege of being legitimate, and not essentially 
futile. This is the alternative sphere indicated, in which 
the copyists may be as successful as the original artists, 
provided they have the power readily to appropriate the 
turns of thought devised by earlier writers, and to employ 
them in their variety and relevance. To a certain extent, 
therefore, this power is accompanied by a power that is 
critical or negative. Generally, it manifests itself in 
perceiving that certain turns of expression are in them- 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 67 

selves vulgar and clumsy, and for ever, therefore, irrelevant. 
In its higher form, it consists of a discrimination of effects, 
which in themselves are valid, as invalid in certain relations 
— inadequate, redundant, or vicious. For not the perception 
merely or chiefly of what is good in itself is the test of true 
sensitiveness, but of what is good in certain circumstances. 
Such a sensibility will manifest itself, therefore, in the 
repudiation of every mode of expression that is incongruous 
with the prevailing cast of thought, or the general structure 
of a proposition ; in the perception, that this or that 
expression requires to be expunged or modified, as affecting 
too severe a qualification of a certain idea, or requires 
modification before it can operate adequately as an 
exponent of the spirit of a certain passage. Most obviously, 
this capacity is useful in critically reorganising and re- 
modelling one's own compositions. Every writer feels the 
necessity more or less of altering his first draught of a com- 
position for the better, not only in the conception and 
motif, and the modification of long reaches of thinking, by 
the resources of transposition, and the altering of distant 
proportions, or the interpolation of new ideas, etc., but in 
the diction itself. 
Cor. — What is good in an author's expression may be rather 
the reflex of good thinking otherwise, than the result of a 
general capacity for Style. The more logically, for instance, a 
man thinks, the less will he be disposed to write with any 
extra measure of gracefulness. Yet that of itself is a guar- 
antee for a certain quality of elegance. And where he is 
most of all in a condition to benefit by his logic, is where it 
coexists with the independent facilities and graces of expres- 
sion. There is, in fact, no collateral agency, whether of 



68 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

intellect or of temper, that may not co-operate to individual 
force of style. And no writer is above being improved by 
the aid of the machinery which exists internally for ratify- 
ing his distinctive brilliance as an artist, in the way of repro- 
duction and revision. Naturally, in connection with revision, 
it sounds paradoxical to say that a man is inevitably an artist, 
whose original execution leaves much to remodel, and no artist, 
because it leaves nothing to amend. For evidently it is just 
the impracticable blockhead, who will find it most difficult 
to vary his original conceptions. In this, however, he is 
formally on a level with the greatest of impromptu performers. 
And what is intended is, that, with every necessity for 
amendment, there must exist a corresponding ability to meet 
it. In the case of the blockhead, the necessity for improve- 
ment exists at a maximum, with the minimum power of 
counteraction ; with the supreme artist it exists at a mini- 
mum, with the additional pleasant condition of a critical taste 
at its maximum. Certainly a happy adjustment applied to 
continuous expression is a crucial test of the artist, under con- 
ditions of success so liable to disturbance, even from physical 
causes. And if in such circumstances the mental balance is 
disturbed, it is evident to what extent it must draw upon its 
facilities for repeal and amendment. Apart from this, the 
critical faculty is constantly used in the original composition. 
And that it is not needed for subsequent correction is due, 
not to the spontaneity of the mind in that original effort 
having overridden the necessity for it, but precisely to its 
having itself been in full play ; that it is required ultimately, 
being a sign pro tanto of its not having co-operated originally 
to produce a satisfactory result. 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 69 

Section III. Of Style in its relation in Rhetoric. 

7. 

The method of Style is essentially that of a Critique, i.e. a 
separation or dis-cernment of individual expressions from each 
other, in so far as it has to do with expression, and of indi- 
vidual complements of expression from each other, in so far 
as it has to do with individuals. This method, on the one 
side, is distinguished from the dialectical, by placing its 
specific results and items as ultimate and permanent, and 
expressly as not having a tendency to pass into each other. 
On the other, the science is distinguished from Ehetoric, 
whose function it is to apply the data of expression; and 
which stands, therefore, as the practical science of Style. 

A man's literary power is pro tanto a fund of expression ; 
indestructible, but capable of being modified within certain 
limits, of being extended or intensified, limited or sup- 
pressed. The final question, in the case where one writer 
is pitted against another, is as to the adaptation of their 
respective styles to the circumstances. And thus expres- 
sions begin to acquire invidiously, so to speak, and by way 
of rivalry, a certain value as opposed to each other. The 
duty of every artist is accordingly, (1) to develop his own 
special skill of diction, (2) to supplement it with whatever 
he may lawfully reproduce from the common fund of ex- 
pression, and (3) to adopt the several varieties of diction 
to the separate circumstances in which he thinks accommo- 
dation is demanded — which may include expressly the abne- 
gation of the more luxurious or even more catholic effects 
for the sake of the lower and coarser. The science of 



70 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

this distribution, affiliating itself to Style at this point, is 
Bhetoric ; and its function on the negative side is to con- 
travene and truncate mere stylic brilliance, where that is 
necessary — to reproduce spontaneity in chasteness of propor- 
tion, and the transcendental in the practical, and, generally, 
to insist on the subordination of immediate to mediate 
effect. Thus high literary effort upon a magnificent scale 
is a desirable thing in relation to the literary ideal. But 
the high style on occasion may be useless, and for effect 
virtually lower than one absolutely less forcible. That 
collision, however, may be resolved, and the former ideal 
restored, if it should happen that culture could be given, 
by not condescending to the immediate exigencies. There 
are degrees of merit in the different standards. Nor does 
the higher artist supersede the lower, even if his literary 
culture be merely secondary, and superinduced by the 
necessity to write, because some men must read him — i.e. 
are compelled to apply to him for instruction — who have 
no occasion to study the higher models. Even he, the 
journeyman author, the conscript, has it in his power to 
raise the art as an art, (1) by raising the average standard 
of execution, (2) the standard of appreciation, (3) the pro- 
fessional standard, stimulated by the non-professional 
sympathy, and reacting upon it. 
Cor. — This distinction is. the broad external distinction 
between Bhetoric and Style, according to which the one is the 
regulative science of the facts which constitute the other. The 
condition of origin being satisfied, in Style, Bhetoric deals with 
the conditions of result. A man is bound, in the first instance, 
by individual, local, or professional bias; his individuality 
combating these elements perhaps, or coalescing with them to 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 71 

a good or a bad purpose. These he may wish, in the next 
instance, to foster or to overcome for certain ends. And so 
there arises the teleologic ideal, according to which it is deter- 
mined not what the man ought absolutely to be, but what he 
ought relatively to be. 

8. 
Style is distinguished more especially from Ehetoric, by 
taking account of ideas immediately connected with each 
other in detail, while Ehetoric is the science of passages and 
pieces in their totality. To regard an entire paragraph, as 
offering a relief to another, for example, is rhetorical and para- 
stylic. The two sciences become thus complementary modes 
of viewing any particular passage. For it may quite easily 
happen that the individual expressions are good, but that the 
disposition of the larger masses is confused or disproportionate, 
or that the total conception is clear, but the diction clumsy, 
etc., there being thus not one criterion, but two criteria. The 
distinction is most easily illustrated from a complete piece, 
and one whose outlines are few even if complex, as for example 
a poem, which allows a special condensation : — 

BIETH AND DEATH. 1 

Ever gaze to each other two figures, one lit with the light 

Of earth's sunshine, and one in the shadow thrown back from the 

bright 
Larger sun of the future. Lo, Birth, but a child : her bright hair, 
That life's breeze gently stirs on her forehead so snowily fair, 
Ripples golden and glad in the sunlight, and mirth's frolic beam 
In her eyes' azure dances, unwitting of that sombre dream 

From " First Fruits and Shed Leaves : " by the Author of " The Wreck of 
the Northneet." 



72 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

That darkens the distance. Joy-parted, her mouth seems to sip 
With cleft coral the exuberant brightness that breaks on her lip. 
As frail-seeming and white as a mist-wreath, her garment o'erclings 
Her flesh softly moulded and rosy as when the light springs 
With last kiss from the ardorous sunset to cloud in the east — 
So pure are her young limbs and rosy, so dimpled and creased. 

As silent and dark as a shadow, unmoved as a stone 

That standeth all day in the desert, unseen and alone, 

"Waiteth Death : no breeze touches her mantle that falleth right 

down 
Over feet that we see not and hands that we see not; a frown 
Seems to drift down the distance and blight the fresh pastures of 

life, 
And an icy breath seems to blow from her and make the air rife 
With tremblings. And yet as we gaze in her fathomless eyes 
The charm of her beauty awakens, although her hair lies 
White and thinly laid over her forehead's mysterious shade 
(That looms with a beauty no earth-light may ever invade), 
And her fine lips together are set in a sadness divine, 
Too deep and too holy for sorrow — each loveliest line 
Of her limbs 'neath her raiment of shadow a presence becomes, 
And a scent broodeth round her far sweeter than odours of spices 

or gums. 



This poem in its totality is essentially subtle. There is, 
first, a broad and obvious antithesis between Birth and Death 
— Birth in her morning beauty, and Death in her austere 
repellance. But secondly, a contrast is introduced between 
Death in this aspect, and Death in a more auspicious aspect, 
as being spiritually its own euthanasy, and the emancipator 
of the soul into life. But is this all ? Not, certainly, accord- 
ing to the genial significance of the poem. For in the third 
instance, there is the contrast between Death, no longer Death 
the sullen, but Death the serene, and the unchanged joyous- 
ness of Birth. And here is what might be the coincidence of 



OF STYLE GENEKALLY. 73 

Death and Birth. Negate Birth, and you have Death; 
negate Death, and you have Birth. That is, in the ordinary 
dialectic. But the special subtlety of this conception is not 
merely, having differentiated Death from Birth, to differentiate 
it again from itself, but to differentiate it so that, under the 
last aspect, it shall still be differentiated from Birth, and not 
repeat any of the characteristic imagery there. The dialectic 
is the true dialectic, by which loth elements are held resolved 
in a higher medium. Such is the motif, or rhetorical aspect 
of the poem. Now obviously enough, the imagery which runs 
in a series of parallels expounding the general conception, 
reflects in detail the dominant idea of the piece. But, apart 
from that, it has a purely stylic value, according to the degree 
of beauty and precision with which it expresses the separate 
idea that it is intended to convey. Thus, independently, the 
italicised passages are perfect in their effect. The one ex- 
presses the redundancy of delicate sensuousness — delicate, 
because sipping just catches the aspect of the lingeringly 
parted lip, redundant, because the lip is painted as tasting, i.e. 
receiving, a radiance, of which its own redness is in part the 
cause, i.e. diffuses. The other expresses the sense of mystery, 
in the veiling of the feet and hands, since the hand and the 
foot are just the members that universally in ordinary use, 
and for the sake of freedom of touch and movement, are left 
uncovered by the mantle. 

It happens that, mediately, through their relation to the 
common totality, individual expressions have a relation to 
each other, which are not immediately connected. Stylic 
connection of individual propositions is with those which 
stand next to them in the process of thinking ; rhetorical 
connection of separate thoughts is that in which they recip- 



74 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

rocally illuminate each other at remoter distances. A piece 
like " Birth and Death," so rich in felicitous concurrences, 
and so frugal in its anxiety not to expend a single unneces- 
sary thought or image, abounds in this kind of comple- 
mentary significance. The beauty of Death has been 
demonstrated not merely to comprehend the beauty of 
Birth, but to transcend it. And that is the significance of 
" a scent broodeth round her," &c, as opposed rhetorically 
to the mere phase of vision in Birth. This reservation 
marks a severely intellectual style of treatment. For the 
sensuousness in the representation of Birth had reached, it 
might have been supposed, a limit. And yet beyond that 
limit, upon the necessity arising, the luxuriance is pressed, 
the scent expressing a redundance of luxury that the mere 
sight could never give. A subtler sense is brought into 
action, and, as it happens, a rarer sensory even within that, 
for the effect is not deadened by a description of the scent, 
which simply is not that " of spices or gums " — an essence 
that no flame of earth may ever kindle, and that aeons of 
ritual will not burn away. The significance of this part is 
enhanced by its position as the concluding idea of the piece. 
For by drafting the imagery into a separate world of sense, 
the movement of the poem, towards its climax, is translated 
suddenly into a transcendent region, and locked up into a 
perpetual rest, inviolate as cathedrals, and of cathedral 
stillness. 
Cor. — Apart from the indirect significance every individual 
expression ought to have in relation to the piece of which it 
forms a part, and from the significance it may reflect upon 
other individual expressions, it may occasionally have a direct 
rhetorical significance. Why, in the concluding phase of this 



OF STYLE GENEKALLY. 75 

poem, should death be represented as sad with " a sadness 
divine, too deep and too holy for sorrow," when it is felt that 
(according to the Christian conception) she is the medium of 
immortality ? Obviously enough, the association of jubilance 
being preoccupied by Birth, if the totality of the conception is 
to be integrated, a contrast must be preserved between the 
two. Yet that is quite beside the point. Even literary sym- 
metry must vanish, must be abolished, unless it coincides with 
the radical truth on the question. It is also evident, but not 
more pertinent, that if Death were represented as jubilant, in 
a moment would go to ruin the primary conception of her as 
sullen. And as a matter of fact in the execution, this cohesion 
of the character is beautifully preserved against contradiction 
in the contrasted phases late and early — to match the melan- 
choly sweetness of the one there is no scowl, but a frown, nor 
even a frown, but what " seems" to be a frown. That primary 
conception, nevertheless, gives the cue to the representation of 
Death, and is determined, antecedently to all artistic consi- 
derations, by the natural feeling which it betokens, that of 
instinctive awe. For here the poem is entirely subjective : 
her dreadful aspect representing our feeling of dread. And 
hence in the sequel her sorrow for us means our sorrow, our 
anxiety for ourselves ; her attitude being one in spirit with our 
own ; neither maliciously jubilant over her power of destruc- 
tion, nor gratuitously jubilant over the reversionary gain; too 
" holy" for the one, too " deep" for the other. Nor is that any 
marvel, seeing that the mood of Death is too " deep " and too 
"holy" for sorrow; a fortiori, therefore, as regards rejoicing. 
Yet that which is too profound and too spiritual for vulgar 
grief, as it is for vulgar jubilation, is not joy, but sadness ; and 
necessarily so, in accordance with the subjective feeling. But 



76 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

why " deep/' and why " holy " ? Because, in the one case, it is 
associated with reflection, in the other, because it is unselfish. 
And the grief of sadness is infinitely deeper than the grief of 
sorrow, because expounded by a power of reflection, by which 
Death sees herself as a universal agency, remembering all 
whom she has destroyed, and thinking of all those whom she 
must destroy; and infinitely holier, because she grieves not 
for herself the inevitable destroyer, but for us whom she 
destroys. That is the philosophic rendering of the truth of 
the distinction, and that is also the stylic significance of the 
expression. What now of its rhetorical application to the 
whole final conception of Death as sad ? It founds upon the 
essential imssivity, expressed in the words " deep" and " holy." 
Death knows no casual victims, and grieves with no petulant 
grief, since she is no arbitrary instrument, but the fulfilling of 
a fatality, which being necessaiy must for that very reason be 
just, and not to be made the occasion of sickly grief, — and 
being just, must be laden with some reversionary hope. Still 
that hope, being yet in reversion, is not to be saluted with 
boisterous anticipation. The figure of Death is still turned 
toward us, as an experience that must be faced ; though its 
illumination is from beyond. But since its significance, if 
understood in its intense passivity, is not more that of a uni- 
versal than that of a mediate necessity, the indirect suggestion 
of the one by the other is infinitely more subtle and pregnant, 
than if the figure had been turned round amid the blare of 
anthems and the blaze of resurrection. 



Besides the indirect significance which any passage may bear, 
there is for every passage an indirect literary effect, superadded 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 77 

to its immediate stylic effect. This superadded effect is also 
rhetorical, as contradistinguished from the stylic. 

The two canons according to which literary effect is most 
rapidly determined are these two — force and artistic beauty. 
There is no effective passage, of which we cannot say it is 
either forcible or beautiful. But obviously every passage 
that is forcible is also to a certain extent beautiful, and 
vice versa. That a man does not generally admire the way 
in which he has been knocked down, does not disprove 
this ; his irritation may interfere to prevent it. But that in 
a single instance he has so far abstracted from his personal 
feeling as to admire a telling blow of that kind, is a com- 
plete proof that the exhibition of modulated power has of 
itself a reflex aesthetic value. So also the mere view of a 
fragile object, a petal, or a piece of porcelain, conveys pro 
tanto a sense of power. Even verbally they may be shown to 
have a certain identity. By " effect," in common phrase, we 
mean, on the one hand, palpable result ; and a thing is effec- 
tive just in proportion as it produces such a result. But a 
thing done " for effect," on the other hand, expresses the last 
definite purpose assignable for any exertion whatever — the 
sublation of all ordinary purpose — viz. an aesthetic purpose. 
The phrase has become partly one of contempt. But it is 
legitimate, seeing that the aesthetic purpose is itself a 
teleologic purpose, and the teleologic value in that case is 
exactly proportioned to the aesthetic result. It is the same 
with literary effect : — 

How sweet is thy love, O my sister, my betrothed ! 

How sweet is thy love above wine ! 

And the fragrance of thy perfumes above all the spices ! 

Thy lips, O my betrothed, distil honey ; 

Honey and milk are under thy tongue, 



78 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

And the odour of thy garments is as the smell of Lebanon. 

A closed garden art thou, my sister, my betrothed, 

A closed garden, a sealed fountain. 

Thy shoots like a garden of pomegranates, 

With precious fruits, 

Cypresses and nards, 

Nard and crocus, 

Calamus and cinnamon, 

With all sorts of frankincense trees, 

Myrrh and aloes ; 

With all kinds of excellent aromatics, 

With a garden-fountain, 

A well of living waters, 

And streams flowing from Lebanon. 

Arise, north wind ! and come, thou south ! 

Blow upon my garden, 

That its perfumes may flow out ! 

There is no immediate force of expression here ; never- 
theless it produces for us not merely a sense of power in 
the artist, but a sense of force that is not in spite of, but 
directly proportioned to, the beauty in the expression. And 
so conversely : — 

The mouth is amply developed. Brutalities unspeakable sit upon 
the upper lip, which is confluent with a snout ; for separate nostrils 
there are none. But the lower lip, which is drawn inwards with the 
curve of a marine shell — oh, what a convolute of cruelty and revenge 
is there ! Cruelty ! — to whom 1 Eevenge !-rfor what ? Pause not to 
ask ; but look upwards to other mysteries. In the very region of his 
temples, driving itself downwards into his cruel brain, and breaking 
the continuity of his diadem,, is a horrid chasm, a ravine, a shaft, that 
many centuries would not traverse ; and it is serrated on its posterior 
wall with a harrow that is partly hidden. From the anterior wall of 
this chasm rise, in vertical directions, two processes ; one perpendi- 
cular, and rigid as a horn, the other streaming forward before some 
portentous breath. 1 

1 Description of the Nebula in Orion : by De Quincey. 



OF STYLE GENERALLY. 79 

Not an image of beauty is here ; yet extrinsically, and 
because of its essential force, a reflex aesthetic sense is pro- 
duced. And but for its force this effect would not be given. 
Directly it excludes beauty just as much as weakness. But 
that which in itself excludes beauty becomes thus the me- 
diator of it in relation to expressions which seemed calculated 
to express the reverse, viz. repulsiveness. The indirect effect 
in both these* cases is rhetorical, that is to say, it is not dis- 
tinctively the same for either, but alternatively. It may 
be difficult at times to say which is the immediate effect, 
and which the derived, since they meet in every passage. 
But the same causes which operate to make the relation 
dual, and, therefore, on occasion, equivocal, necessarily 
operate as a ground for distinguishing which is the derived, 
and which the immediate, whether beauty or force. 
Coe. — The rhetorical principle holds true in the converse case, 
that whatever is generally inartistic is to that extent weak, 
and whatever is weak is inartistic. But whether negatively, 
or positively, the rhetorical possibilities of effect, as well as 
those of stylic effect on which they found, rest ultimately on 
the possibilities of the formation and aggregation, the differen- 
tiating and the grouping of individual expressions, in their 
simple ultimate relations of Quality and Quantity. Of these 
the primary relation is that of Quality. 



CHAPTEK II. 

Of Quality. 
Section I. The Conditions of Quality. 

10. 

The universal criterion for style, first and last, is effect. If a 
man calls you a fool, lie produces a result, because of some 
issue or principle suggested, and connecting itself with some 
sentiment — of chagrin or astonishment/ of pain or resentment, 
etc. Now the inevitable co-factor in all such cases is novelty. 
The proposition advanced need not be substantially new ; it 
may be identically a repetition of an old charge or statement. 
But that mere quantitative or numerical difference is sufficient 
to create a sensation of novelty. It is not that you have not 
been told so before ; but it is that you are now told so by a 
different person. Or perhaps it is not even that ; but it is 
that you are now told it by the same person a second time. 
That of itself stimulates the attention, apart from the stimulus 
otherwise lent by the fact that something was to be said, 
which you expected to be something new. And the faculties 
of reproduction are known implicitly to be so weak, that your 
informant trusts either to your having forgotten it, or else you 
politely bear with it, trusting that he has forgotten having 
said it. And if not, you revolt. You did not come there, 
you say, to learn that, or you did not pay to hear ^that, etc. 



OF QUALITY. 81 

And supposing what you are told to be something like this, 
that six and five make eleven, you rebel, because an effect is 
produced which you cannot get rid of, and which is produced, 
just because the statement which occasions it is not novel. 
That being your desideratum, perhaps even your sine qua non, 
the result is not immediately, because the statement is com- 
monplace, but mediately, because it is not original. 

In so far as v logic is the immediate science of truth, it 
supplies any essential virtue that might be found to belong 
to an art like style in expounding truth. What style re- 
ceives for itself is only a certain percentage of commission 
for making the truth tell. The amount of its profits, how- 
ever, is determined, not merely by the degree of its success, 
but by the amount of truth which it communicates. This 
is the second and implicit condition of style, just as logic, 
after its own fashion, acknowledges the condition of origi- 
nality. There is no need, it is felt there, of illustrating the 
multiplication-table ; all that must be left to the illumi- 
nator, or embosser on new patterns. And even in testing a 
proposition accepted as true, the tester is virtually assuming 
that it is not known to be true. When attested, therefore, 
it is pro tanto original ; truth becoming thus a synthetic idea. 
And conversely, originality, instead of meaning simply that 
which is not known, comes to mean that which is not 
known to be true. 
Cor. — The absolute criterion of all suggestion is truth; novelty 
is only relative. But, as it happens, style deals distinctively 
with the relative, leaving logic to deal with the absolute. It 
is to be distinctly observed, however, that the relativity 
of truth ascribed to style is that of novelty, not of particu- 
larity. A statement, according to literary modes of dealing, 



82 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

is relatively true for a man for whom it was not true before, 
not as being true for him, because false for some one else. 
The purpose of style is not simply to defend or aggrandise a 
foregone conclusion in any man's mind, dividing the world on 
any particular question into two factions, those who believe 
the one phase, and those who believe the other. The division 
which it makes is of all men into two sections, those who 
know a truth, and those who know it not (a much more uni- 
versal division than the other, since that upon most questions 
leaves a third space open and indifferent), or, it may be, those 
who know it adequately, and those who know it inadequately. 
For as soon as a truth is announced, and to some extent 
recognised, there is a call to intensify the impression at the 
moment, and make the truth better known — known more 
clearly, more forcibly, more captivatingly. If the idea is ap- 
prehended as yet only in figure, explicate it literally ; if it is 
scientifically obscure, bring it through figure into a clearer 
apprehension. Have the data become stale? — let them be 
vivified by historical illustration ; or superannuated ? — let 
them be supplemented by later researches, so as to equate the 
interest of the listener, on the one hand, with their importance, 
and on the other, with their fertility. The result in this case is 
not, as in the first, where the gain to one side is a dead loss to 
the other, but always a positive advantage; and, for the 
individual, of knowledge experimental instead of visionary, 
and of knowledge coherent instead of confused and partial. 

11. 

All effect, depending ultimately on the conditions of novelty 
and truth, is produced mediately through the terms of separate 
propositions, through the mutual relations of subject and pre- 



OF QUALITY. 83 

dicate. This is what constitutes Quality in style generally ; 

in which it is identical as to its oasis with Quantity in logic. 
The quality of a thought is that which makes it to differ 
from other thoughts, to be that which distinctively it is. 
In logic, all this descends upon the copula; and the 
differentiation there is of the simplest; for no matter in 
what way the subject and predicate behave, the question 
revolves upon "us : Is it, or is it not so ? With a different 
criterion, the differentiation of style is more complex ; it 
allows of various kinds and degrees of effect, where logic 
allows of none. And hence the fact that the onus of the 
differentiation settles upon the subject and predicate. In 
logic, novelty being satisfied (i.e. postulated), the question 
of truth devolves upon the copula. Which implicit canon 
of observance being settled for style, the explicit stylic con- 
dition is fulfilled in the subject and predicate. It would be 
spurious to insist upon the distinction between truth and 
novelty, as if the first were related specially to the subject, 
and the latter to the predicate. It is to a certain extent 
true, that, since the predicate comes last, the attention 
apprehends the novelty of the conception, only when the 
final term is distinctly rapped out, and its truth, only when 
it travels back upon the subject, to compare the one with 
the other. In fact neither term acts without the other. 
And as logic claims the copula, in which its results are 
determined, through the subject and predicate, so style lays 
claim to the latter, in which its results are determined 
through the copula. And this happens not in spite of, but 
because of the fact, that the terms and the copula are 
capable of reciprocal variation t (by permutation, etc.). Also 
it happens not in spite of, but expressly because of the fact, 



84 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

that each science is governed fundamentally by the same 

laws. 
Cor. — Quality in the scientific sense is obviously to be dis- 
criminated from any thoughtless figurative use of the term 
applied to what are certain properties of style (loosely called 
qualities) or quasi -rhetorical criteria (§ 9, p. 77), founding 
upon this one elementary and homogeneous fact of quality. 
It would evidently be a very coarse and a very gratuitous 
confusion, to place such properties of style as Force and 
Beauty in the same category with the elements of style, such, 
for example, as sublimity. (1.) These properties form a dis- 
tinct set of criteria, applicable to any passage, superadded to 
the criteria which determine its effect as regulated by the 
amount of sentiment. And to place both under a common 
category is, therefore, the same thing as to classify together 
wool, platinum, hardness and flexibility. Metaphor and 
other elements are quite overlooked in this process, which have 
equal right to go into the category of so-called qualities 
with sublimity. And the gist of their exclusion is, that as 
elements they are left to be qualified by the properties includ- 
ing sublimity; which means precisely that tin and copper, 
etc., are qualified in respect of certain attributes, such as hard- 
ness, flexibility — and iron ! (2.) While the properties of style 
involve each other reciprocally (§ 9), the elements of style do 
not ; they are either indifferent, as in metaphor and sublimity, 
or else mutually exclusive, as in sublimity and humour. (3.) 
The properties of style are to be found in every thought ; the 
elements are only occasional, i.e. variable merely and alterna- 
tive. Every thought is more or less clear, more or less beauti- 
ful, more or less forcible ; the properties come directly into 
question in regard to every expression, and in their totality. 



OF QUALITY. 85 

Some element of expression must, of course, be in every 
thought, but each, as it were, only in rotation. 

12. 
The principle by which a term is divided, according as it 
signifies certain attributes, or the number of objects to which 
these may be extended, is known under some name or other 
to all readers. It might be supposed that for style, if any 
change of nomenclature were required, it would be sufficient to 
introduce some phrase which might express the essentially 
compound nature of the connotation in its terms. That, in 
fact, is not the case, but the reverse ; since the very relation 
which calls attention to the connotation of attributes in a 
compound, calls attention to the fact that each complex term 
is divisible into attributes numerically separate. Accordingly, 
by the inclusion of a term is meant, in relation to style, the 
aggregation of a certain number of attributes, and by its im- 
plication, its comprehension of a certain congeries of in- 
dividuals. The implication of "thing," for example, is 
universal; since it covers all objects indifferently, and, 
without a hint of tbe brilliance and mass of whatsoever 
attributes they may include, itself most meagre in respect of 
that inclusion which it vilipends in other terms. This is 
borne out in a somewhat paradoxical way. When a boarding- 
school young lady does not dare to be directly and maliciously 
impudent, or is too excited or too refined to express herself 
with vehemence, she calls her friend and enemy a " thing ; " 
where the very absence of all positive inclusion is the ground 
of the derived significance. The individual is denuded of all 
that constitutes individuality in the sense affecting her — is re- 
duced to the individuality which distinguishes one farthing 



$6 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

from another. And the term is applied with most effect to j 
person, since from a person there is most to take away. This 
is the opposite case, viz., depth of inclusion. For, agreeably 
to the dual meaning of the term, individuality, which, on the 
one side, signifies abstract identity, an identity which one other 
individual is sufficient to expound, signifies also a concrete 
identity, which it may take an infinite variety of others to 
expound. 

The more common and superficial relations of description 
and distribution (as opposed to definition and division) are 
essentially stylic in their adaptation. Description, for ex- 
ample, by way of simile — e.g. a stammerer being described, 
as one who had swallowed the alphabet without chewing it, 
and in revenge had to go through the process of mastication 
when needing to use it — is highly in the manner of style. 
To call a man " both knave and fool " is quite allowable, as 
a matter of description. But a very comical mode of de- 
scription is to counterfeit the technical machinery of 
division, as in saying that a man is " half knave and half 
fool," the man being indivisible in that sense, and indescrib- 
able, therefore, if he were so divided. 
Cor. — Quality as such in style has a definite meaning, in so 
far as it is to be distinguished from a possible quantity ; and 
a technical meaning, in so far as it is to be contradistinguished 
from logical quality. A second meaning which may be 
attached to it is the metaphysical. And accordingly, I draw 
attention, for the moment, to the fact of the internal relations 
of propositions generally, thus : — 

Quantity. Quality. Mode. 

All Men (are) Hypocrites. 

Thirdly, however, it happens that, in common phrase, the 



OF QUALITY. 87 

relations, which here are seen to commingle, may be spoken 
of as convertible with each other. Accordingly, if I proclaim 
the fact that all men are hypocrites, I shall receive the next 
day anonymous letters, requesting, indifferently as regards the 
expression (though peremptorily enough, in all likelihood, as 
regards the intention), that the statement shall be " qualified," 
or " modified." " Quantified," as being a trifle too scientific 
and, therefore, too* calm for an anonymous letter, would not 
be used. Nevertheless, either of the three terms may be 
applied to any of the specific functions of the proposition. 
And as " modify," which means first of all to accentuate, or be 
the cause of the accentuation of any specific difference in 
an object, comes to signify a variation of the present state 
of the object, so " quantify " comes to signify a variation in 
the numerical relations or possibilities of any term. The pre- 
dicate, therefore, which strictly is modal, may also be quanti- 
fied. Only it is a variation of its inclusion which takes place, 
not of its implication; the distinction of the altered term 
being, not that it is specifically connected with this or that 
subject, to the exclusion of other subjects, but that it is con- 
nected with this or that subject to the exclusion of other pre- 
dicates. Its value is determined accordingly either by way of 
its being preferred to other predicates generally, or differ- 
entially, by way of its being preferred to such as from their 
resistance are hard to supersede. That being understood, it 
does not matter how I amend my statement, whether by 
quantifying, qualifying, or modifying. Only that most appro- 
priately (according to the scheme already given), when I am 
asked to retract my paradox, I quantify it, by saying " some 
men are hypocrites ; " being pressed still farther, I qualify it, 
by saying "some wicked men are hypocrites," and finally, 



88 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

being pressed into something like the truth, modify it, by 
acknowledging in desperation, that "some wicked men are 
occasionally hypocrites." With regard to which it may be 
noticed (1) that the critical term in every proposition is the 
middle term, the qualitative, which preserves an equivocal 
relation to the others, changing what is ushered into it from 
quantity in the shape of implication, into the shape of inclu- 
sion when that is transferred to mode. (2) The ratios of 
variation are the same, both for implication and inclusion, in 
so far as both vary numerically. Thus an "all" is always 
greater than a " some." (3) The subject and predicate ex- 
pound and modify each other, and that directly, through the 
common relations of implication and inclusion. A diminution 
of the implication of the subject is followed by an expansion 
of the inclusion of the predicate, and conversely. Also a 
diminution of the implication or inclusion of the subject is 
accompanied by a corresponding diminution in the implication 
or inclusion of the predicate ; and similarly in regard to its 
expansion. But while the process of variation may be ex- 
pounded numerically, the immediate ground of the variation 
is essentially one of quality. The union of two attributes is 
not simply one of numerical increment, but one of combina- 
tion. " Quaint," for example, which, abstractly considered, is 
the synthesis of two conceptions, to wit peculiarity, with an 
element of simplicity, is really qualitative, in so far as one of 
these attributes, at least, is complex, and itself a fortiori is a 
unity of complex meaning. The general principles, according 
to which the variation of quality is determined, are Subtlety 
and Comprehensiveness. 



OF QUALITY. 



89 



Section II. Of Subtlety. 

13. 

Every truth that is determined negatively, i.e. by way of 
resistance to, or essential variation upon some antecedent con- 
ception, falls, like every truth that is simply positive, under 
one of three categories : it is either an All, a Some, or a None. 
And it does so, by way of contradistinction to some one of the 
correlative formulae. The disaffection is organic ; each form 
being complementary to the rest, not simply as a positive 
resource for meeting a specific emergency, but negatively, as 
an exponent of the value and significance of the form against 
which for the time being it is measured. Accordingly the 
form of every proposition may be explicated thus, the thesis 
representing the fallacious version, and the antithesis the 
amended version : — 



Thesis. 




Antithesis. 


No P is Q. 


( Univ.) 


AU P is Q. 


No P is Q. 


(Part.) 


Some P is Q. 


All P is Q. 


(Sing.) 


Some P is Q. 


and conversely : — 






Thesis. 




Antithesis. 


All P is Q. 


( Univ.) 


No P is Q. 


Some P is Q. 


(Part.) 


No P is Q. 


Some P is Q. 


(Sing.) 


All P is Q. 



The implication of the terms is thus expanded, in the first 
section of the scheme, and restricted in the second. Accord- 
ingly, a restrictive universal is formed by reducing an all to a 
none, and an expansive universal, by extending a none to an 
all ; and the particular is restricted and expanded correspond- 
ingly. In the case of singular propositions, however, the 
reverse takes place. To reduce an all to a some is to expand 



90 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

the force of wliat is thus restricted, and to raise the appreci- 
able value of the term as singular — as sole and peculiar. 
And so to reduce the force of a singular proposition is not to 
reduce it to a blank negation, but to make it indistinguishable 
and general, by expanding the some to an all. Any fallacy 
there consists in equating all P with Q, when what should 
have been equated with Q was simply some portion or func- 
tion of P, viz. p. But now, let P be measured against other 
terms, as being itself the singular equivalent for the predicate 
Q ; and the fallacy will consist in equating the generic term, 
say S, with Q, to the obscuring of P. P is here a portion of 
S ; and, by substituting S for P, you neutralise the specific 
value of P. But by substituting S, you have altered the 
inclusion of the term : so long as the talk was of P simply, 
there was only change of implication ; but now that you have 
brought in S, and expanded the implication (from P = some 
S, to all S) you have restricted the inclusion. Hitherto, I had 
held that only those refined-men-who-were-easily-provoked 
were backbiters, but you disabuse me of that belief, by insist- 
ing that all refined men, more or less, are backbiters. But 
now, upon this suggestion of a variation in the inclusion of a 
term, follows another change. You tell me, for example, that 
"all language is progressive, save in very rude and early 
periods," and I am startled by the proposition, having been 
accustomed to regard language as then most aggressive, when 
much remained to be discovered in the way of new ideas, 
and most stationary, when literature had developed, and made 
men everywhere conversant with the whole complement of 
ideas. But the form, under which the new conception pre- 
sents itself to me is this, surprise that anything in language 
should be associated with progression — in the technical for- 



OF QUALITY. 



91 



mula, that any P should be Q. By and by, I may realise the 
fact, that all language is progressive, by pitting that proposi- 
tion (all P is Q) against the other (some P is Q), and so, 
mediately, pitting it against the original one, no P is Q. The 
distinction, in regard to this form of proposition, is that it 
eliminates the negative universal of the first schema, and 
substitutes, under a different valuation, what was the singular 
form as its particular, having provided itself with a new 
singular, determined, not internally and by preserving the 
same term (P), but externally, and by repudiating a new 
generic form, S, thus : — 



Thesis. 




Antithesis. 


Some P is Q. 


(Univ.) 


All P is Q. 


No P is Q. 


(Part.) 


Some P is Q. 


All S is Q. 


(Sing.) 


Only P is Q. 


and negatively: — 






Thesis. 




Antithesis. 


All P is Q. 


(Univ.) 


Some P is Q. 


Some P is Q. 


(Part.) 


No P is Q. 


Only P is Q. 


(Sing.) 


All S is Q. 



Evidently, therefore, in the positive part of the schema, the 
universal antithesis is formed upon the thesis, by expanding the 
implication, the particular, by expanding the inclusion, and 
the singular, by restricting the implication. And in the 
privative section, the universal antithesis is formed, by 
restricting the implication, the particular, by restricting the 
inclusion, and the singular, by expanding the implication. 

Now subtlety, in general, consists precisely (with the help of 
surprise) in the legitimate variation of one or other of these 
formulas to its antithetic formula ; and always by means of 
the inclusion of the proposition. For any variation in a pro- 
position, whether real or fancied, depends upon some varia- 
tion, real or spurious, in its inclusion. Its terms need not 



92 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

vary verbally ; but they must substantially, so that the varia- 
tion shall be reciprocally expounded by each. If a man tells 
me that the dogma of Papal Infallibility is a regulative and 
practical, as opposed to a constitutive and essential doctrine, 
he expands for me the permanent inclusion of the dogma, on 
that side at least. But, at the same moment, he has added to 
the implication of the term " regulative," as extended to this 
very dogma. Accordingly, in this instance, in which it is the 
inclusion of the subject that is expanded, the variation is 
advertised by a corresponding expansion in the implication of 
the predicate. Here, however, appears what might be a blank 
contradiction to the principle of variation (as expressed on p. 
88), affecting the inverse movement of expansion and implica- 
tion in subject and predicate. The rationale, nevertheless, is 
clear : " any " and " none " cannot be measured the one 
against the other, as if they stood to each other as genus and 
species, or vice versa ; they are contraries, and not partial coin- 
cidents. But the moment it is a question of reciprocal varia- 
tion of terms, where they may be compared as genus to 
species, or species to genus, the principle of inversion takes 
effect ; as in fact it does here with regard to the other forms 
of variation in propositions. The subject and predicate vary 
reciprocally thus (the particular proposition being here made 
to usurp the position of the universal) in the positive 
scheme : — 

The Particular (some P, as against no P) expands the 
inclusion of the subject, and the implication of the pre- 
dicate. 

The Universal (all P, as against some P) restricts the 
inclusion of the subject, and expands the implication of 
the predicate. 



OF QUALITY. 93 

The Singular (only P, as against all S) expands the 
inclusion of the subject, and restricts the implication of the 
predicate. 
In the negative : — 

The Particular (no P, as against some P) restricts the 
inclusion of the subject, and the implication of the pre- 
dicate. 

The Universal (some P, as against all P) expands the 
inclusion of the subject, and restricts the implication of the 
predicate. 

The Singular (all S, as against P simply) restricts the 
inclusion of the subject, and expands the implication of the 
predicate. 
So far, however, there is nothing to discriminate what is 
subtle from what is novel. You tell us that your brother has 
joined a secret society. The terms certainly expound each 
other ; but there is no subtlety in your statement, and if there 
could be, it would be in the fact, not in you. And were it 
not that the subtlety would be in us, for suggesting it, we 
should advise you to go and look your brother well round, 
and see if he is not immensely corpulent, and then come and 
tell us that he had gained admission to the society through 
the keyhole. For in some such fashion must you strike the 
manner of subtlety, i.e. in a proposition, whose terms do not 
appear immediately to reciprocate, as to their differential 
restriction and expansion. It will astonish people to hear 
that corpulence should include anything like getting through 
a keyhole, and that getting through a keyhole should 
implicate anything in the shape of corpulence. 

Any variation of a truth that is logically coherent must 
itself be definite. Only, in logic, it is quite enough, if the 



94 LOGIC. OF STYLE. 

alteration rests with the antithesis, anol simply says that 
the thesis is not what it was asserted to be. But this is not 
sufficient, according to style. There it is indispensable to 
assign the counter-position, to say what a thing is or is not, 
and lioiv much of it. And thus it happens, that many a 
writer, bent simply on the exposition of his subject, and 
concerning himself not in the least about his logic, or about 
the possible objections he may be meeting, is reversing 
whole trains of thought in the minds of his readers, without 
being aware that he is overriding theories of which he has 
never heard, and without even being reminded that he is 
colliding with theories which he knows very well. It is a 
commonplace fact, that a man may write well, and may 
reason well, without knowing how he does it. But the real 
point of such a fact is this, that he should write well, with- 
out knowing that he is effecting a good deal by his involved 
reasoning. After a similar fashion, it happens, that the 
perception of a subtle effect on the part of the reader, as 
well as of the writer, while it is always positive, and 
matches a definite antecedent, does not necessarily involve 
the formulating of the antagonist position from which it is 
a rebound. At the same time, a process of rapid mediation 
does go on in the adjusting of subtle effects — which forms a 
distinctive mode of syllogising. To speak of re-entrant 
angles as " tedious," for example, is subtle. What we bar- 
gained for in the inclusion of the re-entrant angle was its 
intricacy, which we find quite safe, plus the idea of weari- 
someness, with a trifle of carriage to pay for the additional 
hint. Our knowledge of the first has been employed to 
mediate the conception of the second. Accordingly, this is 
the rationale of the stylic syllogism : — 



OF QUALITY. 95 

Ke-entrant angles are tedious. 
Since — 1 They are intricate. 
And forsooth — ? Ail that is intricate is tedious. 
And correspondingly in the negative case. The progress is 
from the singular, through the particular, to the universal ; 
and consists rigorously in making explicit what in the 
subject was implicit. 
Cor. — The second and third formulae in both branches of the 
scheme, as finally explicated, admit each of a twofold mode of 
phrasing. For example, all P, as against some P, may be 
read, either as restricting the inclusion of the subject, and 
expanding the implication of the predicate, or else as expand- 
ing the implication of the former, and restricting the inclu- 
sion of the latter. But secondly, the universal in the first 
section, and the singular in the second, are identical as to 
phrasing, in either of these relations ; and correspondingly, 
the singular of the first section is identical in form with the 
universal in the second. Accordingly, the formulae reduce 
themselves to four. But thirdly, the remaining universal and 
singular are really functions of the particular, the one in the 
positive, the other in the negative relation. For, having 
been accustomed to think, good soul, that some S (viz. P) 
was Q, I am naturally surprised to learn that " any S may 
be Q," as, for example, X & Y. Or conversely, having 
been used to associate X & Y with Q, among other members 
of S, I am horrified to discover that, P only being Q, they are 
now disimplicated in relation to Q, i.e. that " any S is not Q." 
The variation, therefore, in either case (negative or positive), 
being a differential variation, and since the universal and 
singular may each be expressed in terms of the implication of 
the predicate, and the inclusion of the subject, the generic or 
representative formula for subtlety in a proposition is this : 



96 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

that it turns upon the differential inclusion of the subject, as 
expounded by the differential implication of the predicate. 

14. 

Subtlety may appear in three forms, in a proposition, in a 
term (which is a condensed form of the proposition), or in the 
link between two propositions (which is an expanded form of 
the proposition). Now the terms and the propositions have 
this in common, that each is concerned either with a fact, a 
principle, or an analogy. In regard to the term, for example, 
we have the word " fool," to express a fact, " doltish," to 
express the principle or tendency, and " donkey," to express 
the analogy. And in the proposition, after its own method, 
we express the fact, by saying that such and such a man is a 
fool, or doltish, or a donkey ; the principle, by saying that all 
people who sit long with damp feet are fools, doltish, etc. ; 
and the analogue, by saying that such and such a person 
looked like a donkey — which is precisely the distinction 
between metaphor and simile, the one belonging to the term, 
the other to the proposition. 

1. In the realm of Fact ; and according to the principle of 
Attention. (1) There is the order of cases, in which the 
mind simply reproduces individual phenomena, with no 
activity beyond what is needed to make these significant. 
Thus (a) in the relation of the universal, the expression, 
applied to the bee, of " velvet " — because, being in the first 
place recondite (i.e. not such as most men would explicate 
to themselves), it applies to all bees, and so enhances 
differentially the perception of the individual who does 
explicate the idea, seeing that other people, from the very 
commonness of the fact, have just as much opportunity for 



OF QUALITY. 97 

explicating it as he. (b) In the region of the particular, 

the expression, 

Grape-green all the waves are, 

is subtle, just for the converse reason, viz. that the effect 

thus painted is comparatively rare, and, therefore, evasive. 

All waves are not green, nor all green waves grape -green. 

(c) In the relation of the singular : — 

Yonder bee anon 
Muffles low hum in some campanula 
Of nectared amethyst, and hums again. 

That applies only to the bee. The noise of a blue-bottle, 

gratuitously hushed on a window-pane, is a very different 

thing. This has all the effect of accident, with all jthe 

sanction of necessity. (2) Subtlety in the reproduction of 

fact arises from the activity of the mind in relation to the 

phenomena, so as to produce a result that is true, but 

hypostatised. (a) By way of negatively hypostatising the 

collateral facts, e.g. to speak of the sea-beach as 

Kissed by wavelets by winds forsaken. 

(b) By way of abstracting from the real totality of the 

facts, e.g. 

Green lizards glance among the sunbaked stones, 
Or rest at gaze with shoulder on the stone 
And half their shadow, 

where there is a very quiet oblivion of the other, and, as 
the poet perhaps whispers maliciously to himself, the 
better half, (c) By way of integrating the conception to 
something more than it appears. Thus a writer describes 
the ox : — 

Audibly ruminating, couch'd at ease 
Upon his shadow, in a luminous moon. 
G 



98 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

The idea naturally attached to shadow, is that obscuration 
which may be seen — which demands some space inter- 
mediate between the object and the surface on which the 
shade is projected. So that what the animal seems to lie 
upon is precisely not its shadow. Now the poet has a 
perfect sanction, from the natural science point of view, to 
speak as he does. Only, and quite apart from that, he 
produces artistically an effect appreciable by all in extend- 
ing the ground-shadow, so as to make it bounded on either 
side by light, and not on the one side by light, and on the 
other by the shade on the animal — in extending the 
unilluminated space from what we see to what (though it 
exists) we do not and never shall see. (3) Subtlety in the 
portraiture of fact may show itself in realising to the 
reflection truth that is actual and complex, (a) In the 
selection of an accidental relation or complexity : — 

From the sails the dew did drip — 
Till clomb above the eastern bar 
The horned moon, with one bright star 
Within the nether tip. 

There is such a thing in what is casual as profound 
verisimilitude, for it is just the fortuitous which is the 
constant in all natural phenomena. (V) In the portrayal of 
a reflex agency : — 

Those angel forms — 

Such blush their grain of pinion warms 

As in a milk-white lily glows, 

Leaned over by a lovelit rose; 

and (c) in the expression of relief, as here : — 

And then away the toddler flew 
To bury her wee face where covert grew 
Of marestail and of fern, a forest small 
Within the forest, taller than them all. 



OF QUALITY. 99 

2. In the realm of Principle, and according to the 
canon of Eeason. By principle, I mean relation substantial 
and philosophic ; whose various orders are embraced within 
the following schema : — 

Relation. 

Origination. 

Mediation. 

Resultance. 

Disrelation. Correlation. 

Transcendence. Community. 

Adversation. Reciprocity. 

Approximation. Convertibility. 

Subtlety of mediation, which is the central conception of 
the first group, may be illustrated from the syllogism, 
which is expressly the formulating of a conclusion regard- 
ing one proposition, through the medium of another. This 
paragraph affords a fine example of subtlety (under the 
category of origin), in discerning the secret source and 
motive of a certain symbolic treatment : — " It has been said 
that the fawn belongs to Apollo and Diana, because stags are 
sensitive to music. But I have myself no doubt, that in 
this particular relation to the gods of morning, it always 
stands as the symbol of wavering and glancing motion on the 
ground, as well as of the light and shadow through the 
leaves, chequering the ground as the fawn is dappled." 1 
Here the commonplace explanation, relying upon a prin- 
ciple that is sometimes subtler than that of the eye, but 
which in this case is too remote and visionary, is easily 
overthrown by a reference drawn from the more obvious 
sense. And in fact, an absolute proof, unique in character 
and in dignity, is given of the truth of the latter rendering, 

1 Mr. Ruskin. 



100 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

by an expression in a poem 1 published a short time 
previously : — 

" And as they leave her in the rain, 
A milk-white doe she often fed 
Through the dim forest limps in pain 

To lean its head 
Upon the harsh grave-wall and die. 

More sweet to it than dells of green, 
Where mate and fawn sun-dappled lie, 
Thy grave, Kathleen ! " 

The effect of transcendence (in the second group of cate- 
gories) is always produced by a result that has apparently 
broken loose from its mediation, and whose factors it re- 
quires a little reflection to rally. Thus : — " If a luminous 
body were to be struck out of existence twelve millions of 
miles away, an observer would still see it for a minute after 
its extinction." And, in mathematics, the principle of 
approximation is perfectly exemplified in the asymptote of 
a curve, which obviously holds the relations of transcend- 
ence and adversation resolved in itself. In the 
relations of the circle and the ellipse (under the general 
category of correlativity), we have a subtle illustration of 
the principle of community. There the coincidence — the 
describing of equal areas by the radius vector in equal 
times — is expounded by the differences — the equidistance 
from the centre, in the one case, as against the varying 
distance in the other, and the uniform velocity of the one 
moving body, as against the varying velocity of the other. 
A frequent way for the principle of reciprocity to manifest 
itself is under these three forms, (1) of positive correspond- 
ence, (2) of negative, and (3) of inverse correspondence ; 

1 " Kathleen," in " Beatrice, and other Poems," by the Hon. Roden Noel. 



OF QUALITY. 101 

which may be illustrated from one example. In the first 
instance, it may be said that the more a people abhors 
crime, the more it punishes it. But in the second instance, 
the fact arises to neutralise that, viz. that the mitigation of 
punishment " does not result from a laxer, but an exacter 
estimate of law and justice. It is because the many so cor- 
rectly regard the law, that we can afford to punish less the 
few who err." And hence, thirdly, " that is the circum- 
stance that explains the apparent paradox, the more a 
people abhors crime, the less it punishes it," — the readiness 
to punish, and the necessity to punish, moving inversely as 
each other. A certain form of dialectic will exemplify the 
principle of conversion. It is easy to construct such 
examples. Thus we may say, it is a universal rule, that 
there is no rule without exception; obviously, therefore, 
one rule must be excepted, as having no exception, and as 
being itself the exception to the general rule ; which rule, 
however, is just the universal rule first named (it being the 
rule which has no exception), viz. that there is no rule 
without exception. It excepts itself in the very moment of 
expressing itself, i.e. is at once the rule and the exception, 
alternately and convertibly either. 

3. In the realm of Analogy, and according to the canon 
of Fancy. (1) Subtlety underlies the differential com- 
pleteness of the coincidence between type and thing 
typified, e.g. 

There is beauty in the long-ribb'd hills, in the valley soft and green, 
In the trees that stand like sages with their shadow all between, 

expressing first, the towering dignity and inevitable calm 
beneficence of great minds ; next, the extent of their indi- 
vidual overshadowing influence ; and finally, the continuity 



102 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

in the influence of each — it is " shadow," not shadows — 

interblendiDg with that of his neighbour. (2) There is an 

order of effects, whose subtlety consists in the partial 

coincidence of the symbol with what is symbolised, and 

where the points of non-coincidence are hinted : — 

A wild bee in a dim chapelle, 
Hovering near a flower-bell, 
With a drowsy murmur droning, 
Imitates a priest intoning, 
With his lowly eyes intent 
Upon the Holy Sacrament. 

The salient points of resemblance are these : first, in regard 

to the sound, as being subdued and continuous ; secondly, 

in regard to the solitariness of the sound, it being the only 

voice heard amid the surrounding and expectant silence ; 

thirdly, in regard to the sound as prelusive to the feast, and 

ceasing with it. Again, the points of contrast are, first, the 

suggestion of a festive and secular purpose, as compared 

with the devotional; secondly, the suggestion of isolation 

and self-ministry, as compared with the distributive office 

of the priest ; and thirdly, the fact, that with the bee the 

feast which the sound preludes is merely one of many 

rapidly succeeding each other, one that ceases, expressly to 

be renewed, while in the other case, it is only occasional, 

and ceases, expressly that its influence may be diffused 

along the intervals. ' (3) There is the case in which 

subtlety of effect arises from the utter antagonism between 

the symbol and the substantial idea which is typified. 

As two spent swimmers that do cling together 
And choke their art. — 

What do we gain from that expression ? Why, that two 
friendly parties have inopportunely leagued themselves 



OF QUALITY. 103 

together, to their mutual disadvantage. Now, in fact, it is 

the reverse that is meant : the expression is used of enemies 

in battle. Nor is this a case like the last, where the image 

is divided within itself, and suggests collateral contrast; 

the simile takes off at the very root of the coincidence ; as 

may easily be proved, for discard it from its connection 

with foes in conflict, and immediately it finds a perfect 

antitype in the idea of friends in distress " leagued together," 

etc., while if you divorce the other image, with all its train 

of coincidences and non-coincidences, what antitype will 

you find to suit it ? 

Coe. — The degree of subtlety varies according to different 

principles. A very complex effect, of course, is produced by 

a subtle combination of propositions, each in itself subtle, and 

with an involution of subtlety in the phrasing. The effect, 

again, may arise from the aggregation of suggestions in one 

image, thus : — 

Still flames of window, long and thin, 

descriptive of the stained glass window-divisions in a cathe- 
dral — " long and thin," to call up the stripling look of such 
divisions, " flames," to call up their pointed form, quite as 
much as the glow of colour, and " still," partly to indicate the 
sanctuary peace, and partly to impose a significant limitation 
on the " flames." That last effect is, therefore, a complex one. 
Again, a subtle principle may be superadded to an image 
already subtle from its completeness, as in the expression, used 
in speaking of a futile effort, that it is " an attempt to paw 
the horizon." The conception is of infinite force, not only 
on account of the physical impossibility (since the horizon 
recedes just as the animal approaches), but metaphysically, 
because " horizon" is virtually an abstraction, and to speak of 



104: LOGIC OF STYLE. 

pawing it, therefore, pretty much as if one should speak of 
being first cousin to the equator, or having a pair of trousers 
measured for the ecliptic. A conspicuous order of subtlety, 
too, is that where the reflex or complex principle is enhanced 
by the delicacy of the form or material : — 

Eyelash so frail, inlay with trail 

Of shade her eyes, a maze of sweetness ! 

My soul sinks through their dimlit blue 
To find in them her own completeness — 

as if each eyelash left its separate impress of shade, and (as 

the " trail " hints) were fringed off in the shading. 

15. 
Every subtle truth is essentially paradoxical, i.e. it bears, on 
its first consideration, a different value from that which it 
bears on reflection. It is, at least, abrupt, and possibly sub- 
versive of some existing conception. Occasionally it divides 
mankind into two classes, those to whom the suggestion is 
startling, and those to whom it is contradictory. Possibly it 
ranges all under the latter category, as did the discovery of 
the earth's motion round the sun. That was a total contra- 
diction of everybody's experience. Not, however, an absolute : 
the senses were not affronted, as if they had been told that 
there was no motion in the circumstances at all. For mani- 
festly, if the earth did revolve — not sidle, but turn upon its 
axis — round the sun, the very same phenomenon would be 
produced ; the one hypothesis, for the reflecting mind, was 
just as consonant with the facts as the other, and by much 
the more exciting. The popular mind, and the mind educated 
up to a certain point, are often alike inconsistent in this 
respect; at onetime believing statements just on account of 
their paradox, and at another, disbelieving them for their 



OF QUALITY. 105 

paradox. The educated person repudiates the popular idea, 
that a man may be lighter just after his dinner than he was 
before it ; but in the same moment he revolts from the not 
very unobvious truth, that any two pure abstractions (such as 
Being and Non-Being) are identical, as a lie, or if not, a snare, 
and if not a snare, a joke. These inconsistencies, nevertheless, 
go according to a principle, which it would not be difficult to 
frame, so as to anticipate and neutralise the essentially vulgar 
and discreditable kind of testimony, in regard to certain ques- 
tions, which is derived from majorities. Meantime, the more 
commonplace the mind, the less does it value pure originality, 
and the more, confounding what is merely fresh with what is 
original, does it tend to undervalue the latter by comparison. 
For imaginative synthesis the populace has no sympathy what- 
ever, and for dialectical truth in particular, as much adapta- 
tion as a cow has for getting through a turnstile. 

A man cannot be said to have subtlety for his differentia 
in style, unless he is equal to a sustained originality in 
thinking. Everybody says something subtle now and 
again : the dice must occasionally turn out as if the experts 
had loaded them. And the modes of thus reaching subtle 
truth are just the modes of the expert, only they are not 
employed so continuously, or upon the same fields. Sub- 
tlety is never more transcendental than reflection; and a 
truth is only subtle for those who can fully apprehend it. 
It would be inaccurate, therefore, to speak of a thing unin- 
telligible, as absolutely subtle ; much rather a suggestion is 
absolutely subtle, which is perfectly intelligible, and a truth 
not quite intelligible is only relatively subtle, because it can 
be valued only indirectly. By reflection, therefore, it is 
that such effects are attained ; and often through a man's 



106 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

discarding his first impressions, or reverting to those which 

forsooth he had discarded for others which have now to be 

relinquished as false. Subtlety is not always a second-sight, 

that raises a man, as if inspired, above his fellows, but often 

a second sight in the coarse numerical sense. Thus an 

author, in speaking of a death by drawing asunder, remarks 

that the victim was torn " by antagonist, yet confederate 

forces " ; where he shows the maximum of reflective power, 

since in " confederate " he has given the very antithesis of 

his primary drift ; and yet he has only exhibited a power of 

fanciful reflection, after all. 

Cor. — No man is truly original who is not also subtle to his 

finger-ends. But no perception is really subtle, unless it is 

also true. And in proportion as the speculative truth in the 

world has been brought out by individuals, in that proportion 

is it indebted to subtlety. That subtlety should be regarded 

as necessarily equivocal, arises in part from this, that men 

take pleasure in certain forms of it, without thinking earnestly 

of its allied truth ; or even charge the pleasure, attendant on 

the perception of the truth, to the account of the other ; and 

so come to regard subtle suggestion as a medium of amusement, 

not of work — of information and reformation. Nor is this 

mode merely to be regarded as one of the ways of attaining 

certain truths : there are truths — and truth in many instances 

lies on the farther side of a quicksand — which cannot be 

attained in any other way. Of which the most natural proof 

is in the immediate case of subtlety itself : how should the 

truth on that question be attained without subtlety ? It 

cannot possibly be attained otherwise, any more than minute 

atmospheric changes can be registered, except by an apparatus 

correspondingly delicate. Subtlety here becomes an instru- 



OF QUALITY. 107 

ment as technical as the barometer ; and thus the necessity 
for it is demonstrated, precisely in those regions where 
its application is most pertinent and unique. And in 
literature, subtlety is not applicable to anything but what is 
true, whether poetical or scientific. To deny the existence of 
the external world, therefore, by affirming it to be an affection 
of the senses, etc., is more offensive than the most putrid 
commonplace. So to speak of the sun, in poetry, as " burn- 
ing without beams,' 1 is pure nonsense, and in the spurious 
maudlin oriental style of expression. Contrast with that the 
unaffected rendering of a natural fact in the lines : — 

Dimples, here and there, 

That insects dint with long-legged stride. 

Everybody knows that what distinguishes a ripple from a wave 
is the twitching up of the skin of the water, as it were, under 
the wind. Now as a wave is to a ripple, so is the plash of a 
stone to the dimple of the water by the limb of an insect : the 
plunge goes beyond dinting. But to the limber touch of the 
fly, the surface of the water, so easily shattered by the plunge 
of a stone, merely undergoes a shiver or flicker; and the 
expression "dint" conveys precisely the momentary im- 
pression upon the impervious elastic surface of the pool. 
The image is subtle, is poetical, just because it is so loudly 
scientific in its truth. The true mode of a man's power, who 
has such sensibility to natural effects, it may take a genera- 
tion fully to appreciate, even for his fidelity of perception, so 
long as people see with their noses. But it is just this same 
intensity of truth, in the midst of his characteristic subtlety 
of insight, that has made our contemporary poet, Mr. Noel, in 
so extraordinary a degree, the greatest among the poetical 
draughtsmen and colourists of all time. 



108 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

Section III. Of Comprehensiveness. 

16. 

In regard to any statement, no matter whether that con- 
cerns a principle or a detail, the question arises, do its subject 
and predicate lawfully reciprocate ? The immediate relation 
here is one of truth. And the general form of such a question 
is this, does the subject as a whole include that specific com- 
plement of attributes which form the predicate, and do these 
apply in their completeness to everything that is implicated 
in the subject ? If that condition is fulfilled, the proposition 
is comprehensive. And the formula for such a quality of 
thought is this : comprehensiveness in any proposition turns 
upon the integral inclusion of its subject, as expounded by the 
integral implication of its predicate. 

If the inclusion of many terms were to be explicated, their 
momenta would appear to be very heterogeneous. Never- 
theless, when once the relations of a term are fixed, it 
behaves according to one uniform principle. By which I 
do not mean, in the first instance, that every term, being a 
singular, must have each of its moments specifically fixed, 
as either universal or particular, and not as alternatively 
the one or the other, according to the proximate conception 
which for the moment regulates its internal significance. 
That, no doubt, is true : expressions must not veer or be 
bandied about in such a fashion. But it follows as a 
corollary from this, that every term has its own complement 
of inclusion ; " curiosity," for example, having on the one 
side, as its universal, " desire for information," and on the 
other " pettiness," as its particular. Now the vitiating of 



OF QUALITY. 109 

comprehensiveness arises from putting too fine or too blunt 
an edge upon the predicate of a proposition, using, e.g., the 
proximate singular " prurience," instead of the subordinate 
singular, which stands to "prurience" for a universal, viz. 
" curiosity," and vice versa. An uncomprehensive thinker 
betrays himself immediately, even to people of not much 
general discernment ; probably by a neglect of the singular, 
if his temperament is languid, and by an abuse of it, if his 
bias is impulsive. Wherever motive is concerned, there is 
all the chance in the world of a man's abusing the singular. 
Cor. — The universal canon of integrity in the compre- 
hensiveness of propositions may be variously expounded. To 
a certain extent, it might appear to depend on the nature of 
the subject treated of, whether the result were comprehensive, 
or the reverse. Much more, however, depends on the indi- 
vidual. It is better to hear a man of capacity on midges, 
than a noodle on the Trinity. But much depends also on the 
mode of writing prescribed. If you prescribe the treatment 
solely of details, you proscribe the very essence of a compre- 
hensive treatment in style. Hence the second canon of 
dignity, which ordains a universal implication in the subject. 
Hence, too, the essential dignity of poetry, that, with the 
representation of a fact, it may convey a principle. This 
image, for example, is as purely analytic as any axiom in 
mathematics : — 

The moonpath flecking thin and tremulous the sea, 
where each expression tells like the explosion of a bomb. 
The more perfect such an image, the more does it supersede 
and disparage all other renderings of the same phenomenon. 
The phrase, " inlaying the sea with pearl," applied to the 
glimmer of the moon, is artificial, in comparison, and narrow. 



110 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

But this happens, because the other is so trenchant — apar: 
from the fact, that a literal rendering of nature-phases it 
necessarily more forcible than a metaphorical. Hence the 
canon of felicity, which ordains that the differentia of every 
subject shall be given, by deepening the inclusion of the 
predicate. Objection may, therefore, be taken at once to all 
such terms as " angelic " and " fairy-like," which are simply the 
most dead and ineffective of poetical mannerisms. By the 
side of the finesse that reveals itself in the expression just 
quoted, " fairy," applied to anything whatsoever, is lumpish, 
and " angel " unspiritual. Here it is precisely that the 
spurious, and quasi-tautological, in analytic expression is so 
offensive : — " But let the sober and serious hour come, which 
sooner or later must come to all, the power of truth will soon 
prove too strong for all that can he opposed to it, and pierce 
into his heart," which is pretty much the same thing as a 
man's saying, that D. V. he intends to shave to-morrow morn- 
ing with a razor, if he cannot lay hands on anything else ; — 
with this gross difference, that the last man must be a wag, 
the other is not. Thus the circle is completed. For it is the 
abuse of this principle which constitutes the breach of the 
initial principle of integrity. If the predicate includes too 
many attributes, it cannot be applied in its integrity to 
implicate the subject. Thus " some anachronisms are 
solecisms " must be altered to the universal of " solecisms," 
viz. " anomalies." That being accomplished, it is the turn of 
the subject to raise the " some " to an " all," and, by way of 
reversion upon that, it is for the predicate again to expand 
the inclusion, by assigning the differentia of anachronism, as, 
for example, thus : " All anachronisms are anomalous trans- 
positions of different events in time." 



OF QUALITY. Ill 

17. 

Comprehensiveness may appear in two relations, besides that 
which it has to simple propositions. On the one hand, it may- 
appear in the connection between propositions, and, on the 
other, in the connection between the clauses or sections of 
single propositions. 

A transition is uncomprehensive when it shoots beside 
the mark — either over or under it. For example, it is so, 
when the occasion of anything is assigned as the cause. 
And, on the other hand, its want of comprehensiveness con- 
sists in placing together indefinitely, propositions, whose 
mediation, from one to the other, should be made explicit; 
as, for instance, in putting side by side, as parallel facts, 
circumstances, of which the one is the direct outcome of the 
other. In such a case, the writer often fails of being incisive, 
not because he mistrusts the severer connection, but because 
he does not see it at all : he does not shirk it, he misses it. 
The proposition again, as divided internally, may be 
either a binomial, a trinomial, or a polynomial. (The 
mononomial relation has been discussed in the preceding 
paragraph.) Thus: — "Endless are the purposes of men, 
merely festal, or merely comic, and aiming but at the 
momentary life of a cloud, which have earned for them- 
selves the distinction and apparatus of a separate art." 
Here, in the first clause, "festal" and comic" mark a 
bisection in the thought, and in the second, " distinction " 
and " apparatus." There is, however, an apparent trisection 
in the first, owing to the phrase, "and aiming," etc.; but 
that is the statement of a characteristic which is common 
to both "festal" and "comic," viz. their intrinsic levity. 
A perfect illustration of the threefold division is this : 



112 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

" From the first intermeddling of law with the movement 
of the higher moral affections, there is an end — to freedom 
in the act, to purity in the motive, to dignity in the per- 
sonal relation;" where there is given, first, the fact, next, 
its origin, and finally its result. The polynomial relation 
may be illustrated from this proposition: — "We glory 
in tribulations also — knowing that tribulation worketh 
patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and 
hope maketh not ashamed." It is not hard to discover 
what is the critical point for comprehensiveness in such 
propositions, or what divisions are imperfect. It does not 
follow, that because a statement is broken up into sections, 
it is less comprehensive than a simple statement ; although 
it may happen that a threefold distribution is necessarily 
more comprehensive, because more economical, than a four- 
fold. What is required is, on the one hand, that the 
divisions shall not be elliptical — no polite proposition ever 
yawns to the extent of a third or fourth of its whole 
superficies. The principle of distribution must not be blind. 
On the other hand, the sections must not overlap each 
other. An impetuous writer, or one who writes for im- 
pression upon the common mind, is very apt to fall into 
slovenly modes of co-ordinating his ideas: — "Whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if 
there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on 
these things." The last clause contains a very happy 
antithesis, as summing up the virtues as they are in them- 
selves, on the one hand, and as they are for us, on the other. 
And the same antithesis holds in the main division 



OF QUALITY. 113 

of the first clause. Only there the separate phrases are 
very loosely connected; since there is no fundamental 
principle of division. And what holds for ordinary 
thought, holds also for poetry. It is true that Shakespere 
constantly multiplies metaphors ; but only for the sake of 
intensifying an impression, by expounding it from different 
points of view, which is quite a distinct practice from trail- 
ing a mass of particulars in rag-tag-and-bobtail fashion 
after the main thought. For if a definite principle of 
division underlies the conception, any mere details are 
superfluous, and if not, they must be more or less arbitrary. 
Cor. — The general appearance of a comprehensive thought 
may be rendered appropriately by a very genial extension of 
the term sententious. The sentence is the full, rounded pro- 
position ; and whatever causes a thought to assume a robust 
appearance, is sententious. By the term generally is under- 
stood, whatsoever is characterised by this in excess. Accord- 
ingly all such writing is bombastic, and weak. But, in the 
milder sense of the term, all good writing is sententious, more 
or less ; just in proportion as the thoughts of men who write 
carelessly give the idea of limpness, and a want of having 
come into being through resistance. Hence it happens that 
so much writing is unequivocally flat, and wanting in relief. 
It is not necessary that every thought should be epigrammatic 
in its setting; but it is indispensable that it should be analyti- 
cally definite. This is the fundamental order of the senten- 
tious; and accordingly there is (1) the simple proposition; 
pure in the double sense of being undiluted, and free from 
extraneous matter. Thus: "No man escapes the contagion 
from contemporary bystanders." Of such, too, are all mathe- 
matical theorems, &c. : " The three angles of a triangle are 



114 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

together equal to two right angles." (2) There is the proposi- 
tion, with a clause qualifying the main idea. These sen- 
tences are formed in various ways, by augmenting, or limiting, 
or simply explicating, the primary thought. E.g. " Many of 
the inhabitants (and all those of respectability) subscribed to 
the fund." — " This is a paradox, only in the sense which makes 
it honourable to be paradoxical." — "Popularly, i.e. amongst 
the thoughtless, literature is held to include everything that is 
printed in a book." All good writing deals constantly with 
the relations of facts — their aim, origin, exceptions, circum- 
stances, adverse influences, advantages, proportions, &c, &c. 
And as the vocabulary of a bad writer is indefinite, so is his 
grouping. (3) There is the proposition with an antithesis; 
e.g. "The possibility of selecting books wisely is becoming 
more hopeless, as the necessity for selection is becoming con- 
tinually more pressing." A certain distrust might be attached 
to effects so glittering, were it not that these very effects are 
most exposed to criticism, where they have the chance of 
being most telling, and are most brilliant, when they found 
upon such principles of reciprocity as are logically the most 
just. And what becomes thus a habit of good writing is due 
to more dignified sources than literary knack and facility : it 
is engrained in the thinking. Such effects, of course, are the 
most elaborate ; and many men write from year to year, with- 
out striking a single antithesis. This mode of setting the 
thought gains, accordingly, by comparison, while it cannot 
lose by any abuse that might be attempted. 

18. 
In so far as subtlety and comprehensiveness represent, the 
one the differential, the other the integral, in the variation of 



OF QUALITY. 115 

terms, they are formally opposed to each other. But they are 
so distinguished from each other, just because they are corre- 
lative functions. The one takes up what the other leaves 
undone ; and where the one is active, the other is in abeyance. 
But this is only true formally. And in a very obvious sense, 
to integrate a term is to differentiate it, after a fashion, and to 
differentiate it is to integrate it. Alter a term in any way 
you please, up or down, and you must integrate its inclusion 
or its implication. And at the same time you have caused 
the meaning to differ from what it was a moment previously. 
Just in the same way it happens that a writer's totality of 
expression, forming an integral fact, becomes his differentia in 
regard to other individual writers. So long as comprehensive- 
ness and subtlety are looked at apart from one another, each is 
seen to assume a characteristic form. But the one is involved in 
the other, and in practice this involution is of exceeding pow T er 
and significance. There may be an isolated remark comprehen- 
sive, without being subtle, and rice versa. But there is no such 
thing as continuous expression that is comprehensive, without 
being subtle — although, of course, either quality can only be 
illustrated from individual expressions — and vice versa. For 
evidently, if everybody holds that all P is Q, you, who see 
that some P only is Q, must have embraced the rejected 
members of P with a grasp as comprehensive as that of any 
one else, as it is certainly more pertinent than that of every 
one else. And if, on the other hand, you embrace all P, as 
being implicated by Q, your subtlety must have co-operated to 
discover the principle upon which the outcast section of P 
has been fallaciously excluded from association with Q. Each 
quality is the exponent of the other. 



116 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

The cattle are grazing, 
Their heads never raising, 
There are forty feeding like one. 

What have we here — an image that is more comprehensive, 
or more subtle ? Subtle it is to begin with, from the sudden 
combination of ideas — some P is some Q — that by and by- 
diffuses itself like the dawn. For after the surprise, it is seen 
that there is no straining in the predicate, no spurious refine- 
ment, or discordance. It is at least generic in relation to 
animals as opposed to non-generic, and applies comprehensively 
to the subject; — some P is all Q. But is this not merely a 
vanishing picture, as applied to that predicate ? The habit 
belongs, so far as we can recollect, to no other animal ; but are 
cattle found feeding in such fashion so frequently, as to con- 
stitute it, for them, a habit ? Surely — only some P is not 
all Q. This the comprehensiveness verifies, by summing up 
the occasions on which cattle have been remembered to graze 
in this manner, and mounts the proposition thus : — all P is 
all Q — the predicate being a proprium, not an accident. But 
now, again, are there not other animals besides cattle, which 
feed after this manner ? No ; — any S is not all Q. Sheep 
feed in numbers, too, and of all animals, therefore, most 
resemble cattle in that respect. But sheep do not feed 
"forty like one." They lack the consentaneousness and 
repose of a herd of cattle feeding (and what, by the way, 
is the secret distinction between "flock" and "herd"?); 
their motion in feeding is a twitching, rather than a 
browsing ; and some of them in a flock are always in 
impatient motion. This is distinction enough, and is the dis- 
tinction indicated in the expression ; — although the difference 
to the ear in the sound made by the different animals in feed- 



OF QUALITY. 117 

ing might accentuate that distinction, and even if the 

spectator were removed out of hearing might associate itself 

with what he sees, especially if he is sensitive to the converse 

case, that, viz. of passing by a field after nightfall, when the 

cattle may be heard and not seen. And this distinction the 

comprehensiveness ratifies by showing the predicate to be the 

differentia, not applicable to the genus : — only P is all Q. 

Subtlety. Comprehensiveness. 

1. Some P is some Q. 2. Some P is all Q. 

3. Only some P is not all Q. 4. All P is all Q. 

5. All S is not all Q. 6. Only P is aU Q. 

And conversely, instead of beginning with the negation of the 

proposition, no P is any Q (viz. some P is some Q), we may 

begin by negating the result attained in No. 6. Thus if we 

are told that only certain kinds of scientific men are the 

authorities on a subject, we may demur, by suggesting (1) that 

there may be others who have a claim to be heard, in fact (2) 

that all scientific men have an equal claim ; further that the 

specialists are (3) not all competent upon the subject, but (4) 

that only some of them are competent ; and finally, that (5) 

even these are more or less incompetent, because, as it turns 

out, this subject is not their subject, but one apart, so that (6) 

not one of them has a voice in the matter. Thus, the 

Predicate being still quantified : — 

Subtlety. Comprehensiveness. 

1. Only P is not all Q. 2. All S is all Q. 

3. All P is not all Q. 4. Only some P is all Q. 

5. Some P is not all Q. 6. No P is any Q. 

Novelty is the hidden condition of comprehensiveness, 

just as truth is its overt condition. Certain principles, just 

by reason of their novelty and subtlety, tend to become 

commonplace. They are at first striking, and so come to be 



118 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

in everybody's mouth, with the reversionary certainty of 
being the opposite of striking. In the same way it 
happens with figurative expressions. The simile about the 
lion shaking the dewdrops from his mane once was new. 
And for central Africa at the present moment undoubtedly 
it is new ; that expression being understood to bring down 
the house nightly in the Theatre Eoyal of the Sahara. 
Only by and by it will come to the ears of the lions, who 
will grow sulky, and refuse to do the shake, and so the 
metaphor will be no longer true. But meantime, and for 
home consumption, the expression must be turned over 
to the wags, who will find plenty ways of applying it, 
so that it shall blossom like the apple-trees in spring. 
Otherwise, such expressions, being derived, involve no com- 
prehensiveness on the part of the writer who uses them. A 
proverb is equally an exponent of comprehensiveness; 
which is a form of expression professing to be com- 
prehensive, and not subtle ; though it is not always what it 
professes to be, and when it is, that happens because it is 
subtle as well, i.e. is that which it does not profess to be. 
Cor. — Considered psychologically, and in a strict scientific 
sense, it is the union of subtlety and comprehensiveness 
which constitutes genius. The term may be used vulgarly to 
denote anything, from heat and clap-trap to a rhythmical 
felicity that is comparatively mechanical ; and may be bent 
to suit a variety of descriptions, which are simply not quack 
definitions, because they do not pretend to be scientific. The 
term, as commonly used, is itself equivocaL A writer may 
quite well be distinct from the crowd, who is yet not to be 
classed with men of the highest power ; and would not be so 
classed, even by those who confound under the one term 



OF QUALITY. 119 

catholic power, and power that is merely eccentric. The men 
of true power have a bond drawing them together, and 
isolating them from men of the second class, plus their 
individuality. It is not individuality alone that constitutes 
genius. For manifestly, if A, B, and C, are all men of genius, 
there must be something common amongst them, just as if 
they are Chinese, there must be something common to them 
all, whether they wear pigtails or not. In itself, individuality 
is the most barren criterion that can be conceived ; for being, 
in the abstract, common to them all, it denudes each of the 
writers of his common, concrete power; each man's in- 
dividuality excludes that of his neighbour. That being the 
case, the distinction of genius between the mind of high 
originality and the ordinary mind, is just as peremptory 
between it and the middle-men or eccentrics. Which dis- 
tinction is something of a definite intellectual cast. It is, there- 
fore, co-present with genial power of whatever kind ; and that 
not merely as an accompaniment, but as a substratum. No 
emotion can possibly be gauged, can possibly express itself in 
literature, except through some intellectual medium. Its 
force and delicacy are expounded by its comprehensiveness 
and subtlety. Nor is this a task to which language is unequal. 
Communication of such emotion, now ethereal, now masculine, 
is made every day ; and with this proof of the infallibility of 
the medium, that all who read do not respond to the feeling, 
or respond to it in different degrees. Those who are affected 
by it are precisely those of whom we could predict that they 
should be affected ; and those who are not, are precisely those 
in whom we have seen the want of capacity for appreciating 
it. The influence of emotion is, therefore, manifestly regulated 
by principle, precisely because it is not indiscriminate. It 



120 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

might be thought, that the fact of a man's not having seen the 
emotional force of a passage, and apprehending it, upon re- 
reading the piece, were a proof of the insecurity of this mode 
of communication. It is in fact the very opposite ; the mood 
simply has not been favourable at first for catching the 
peculiar sentiment ; and the mode of transit would indeed be 
precarious if, when the emotions were inert, the piece had 
been adequately apprehended. Hence it is, that the reader 
recurs to the passage with undiminished pleasure. All of 
which depends upon the permanence of the intellectual co- 
efficients. It is not merely that these include the principles 
of poetical genius, but that they allow for genius of the philo- 
sophic and scientific cast, as well as of the poetical ; — and here 
is another source of equivocation, since so few people can 
square the idea of poetical genius with scientific, and most 
people when they talk of genius mean distinctively the former. 
The power, therefore, as not merely (1) concrete, and to be 
found in a man's individual expressions, but (2) specifically 
intellectual and constant, is (3) essentially recoverable by 
analysis, and to be measured in detail. It does not follow that 
because comprehensiveness and subtlety are not to be 
predicated of a man's style from single expressions, his genius 
can be determined without appraising these expressions. It 
is predicable in detail, provided you predicate in regard to a 
sufficient number of details. And just because it is so, the 
caution needs to be given at all regarding isolated expressions. 
These appear as particulars, and form the universal which we 
call genius, which, in so far, is not local or individual ; only 
the specific form which realises the genius of each man in its 
individuality, is just that mode of expression under which the 
common element incarnates itself, in art and science. 



CHAPTEK III. 

Of Quantity. 
Section I. The Principle of Quantity. 

19. 

A very important distinction exists in Style between thoughts 
as they are independently, and the same thoughts in a process. 
It holds both in relation to single propositions and to proposi- 
tions in a series. So that, on the one hand, a series of thoughts 
may be regarded as containing propositions separately intelli- 
gible ; and, on the other, separate propositions may be regarded 
in relation to mutual reticulation or coherence, each of them 
being potentially a link or item in a series. For the distinct- 
ness or completeness of an idea is as necessary for progress as 
for positive disconnection — which in fact is just the difference 
between insulation and isolation : dig a trench across the home 
end of a peninsula, and you insulate it ; wash away the island 
now formed, from the side of the canal, till its diameter is less 
than the distance which divides it from the mainland, and 
you isolate it. And this progression to an indefinite extent, 
with transitions more or less severe and artistic, and ap- 
pealing more or less to a chain of unexpressed connec- 
tion, reposes upon a natural tendency to the evolution, more 
or less systematic, of one thought through the medium of 

another. 

I 



122 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

I apprehend that a person asked to discourse to an 
audience on landscape-gardening may formulate his subject 
as he pleases, may select for his text a fact, or a proposition, 
or a series of propositions, and may deliver accordingly an 
essay, a thesis, or a lecture. But, in either case, his very 
first movement towards an elucidation or confirmation of his 
theme is a departure from the position he has assumed. He 
cannot expound his subject by simply reiterating the phrase 
" landscape-gardening." He must proceed by beginning 
somewhere else. If he is simply obtuse, he will begin with 
a few general remarks on the interesting nature of the art. 
If he is pretentious as well as obtuse, he will grasp at futile 
analogies in the subject to landscape-painting, led thither 
by the coincidence of the term, and proceed to splice the 
two subjects according to the correspondence which he has 
chipped smooth for them. If he is a master, he will sever 
the subject in its differentia from the generic science of 
gardening, with a hint of its leaning to landscape to convey 
its affinities to the picturesque as well as the stubbornly 
useful in art. "Nov does this happen from the common usage 
with regard to introductions and exordia. On the contrary, 
these are possible only through this principle of quantity ; 
they derive their proportion to the whole theme entirely 
from it ; and their abuse arises through an unseasonable 
extension of its peculiar functions. Not one of the propo- 
sitions in the series may contain an expression implicating 
any of the terms in the text, and yet the whole may be a 
perfect exposition of it. Or the terms themselves may be 
expressed in every proposition of the discourse, and no illus- 
tration given of it whatever. Universally, therefore, it 
holds, that the secession of the expositor from his first posi- 



OF QUANTITY. 123 

tion is the first condition of his return to it ; the fact being 
that the thesis, which henceforth is his terminus ad quern, 
is, for the moment of its being stated, his terminus a quo. 
Cok. — The practical conditions of all interesting thought are 
two, that it shall explicate truth, or make it impressive. In 
the one case, the communicator takes advantage of the ob- 
scurity of a principle, in the other of its simplicity ; or rather 
he lessens or remedies the disadvantage attaching on the one 
hand to a truth that is profound, and on the other to one that 
is commonplace. Now to set the truth in its relations cannot 
be effected for either aim, unless he causes the parts of his 
exposition in detail to be apprehended mediately through each 
other. And since the separate propositions must precede or 
succeed one another in time, priority and subsequence become 
the exponent of relation in thought. For its own part, the 
principle overlooks all difference in the importance of indivi- 
dual thoughts. One idea may be worth in quality of sugges- 
tion all the rest put together ; or it may be the sole unfertile 
thought in a series that is massively and resplendently sug- 
gestive. Its value for transition may or may not coincide 
with its intrinsic and independent value. 

20. 

By whatsoever laws of sequence in fact, or of analogy, or of 
logical consequence, a thought has reached its position in a 
series, it is the rule, that the truth which for the time being 
occupies the attention shall have an advantage over every 
other — an advantage immediate, in the way of excluding 
every other, an advantage derivative, in the way of suggesting 
others. It is a supplanter of every other truth to this extent, 
that any truth supplanting it shall do so only in virtue of the 



124 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

relation of that truth to itself the proximate truth. Ab- 
dicating the throne, it has a right to name its successor ; the 
chances being that this will be a relative, according to its 
force at the moment of resignation. That a certain range of 
thought has been in occupation for some time is a pre- 
sumption that it will soon be displaced ; its displacement, in 
fact, is rapidly being carried on. For each idea has two dis- 
tinct values, a potential value, as a generating or multiplying 
source of ideas, and an actual, as a link in the development 
of a succession of ideas. The potential value, therefore, of 
such a chain of thought is being reduced with every suc- 
cessive proposition to actual value. And correspondingly its 
power of resistance to a possible succeeding series of thoughts 
is being reduced to zero — a process that, with discontinuous 
thinkers, goes on very rapidly. 

The two factors requisite for systematic composition are 
physical energy and intellectual fertility. Nor will their 
conjoint operation be defeated, except on the suspension 
of the conditions under which the initial thought was 
generated. That suspension will be a mixed result from 
physical exhaustion, and a lack of that surplus fund of 
unorganized suggestions regarding the immediate theme, 
precisely to the extent that the potential energy, or the 
potential fund of illustration, has had demands made upon 
it. The resistance, in such a case, to the production of 
fresh thought would certainly be enormous. In fact, writ- 
ing under such circumstances is quite exceptional. It is, 
however, the ordinary case which I contemplate, and pre- 
cisely the opposite circumstances, viz., those in which 
the resistance arises from the tumult and redundancy of 
the thought. For every new idea operates by way of dis- 



OF QUANTITY. 125 

turbing existing relations. If these have been exhausted, 
it does not come a moment too soon. If not, it acts in the 
way either of delaying the development of the thought, or 
of precipitating it. A resistance has, in fact, been inter- 
posed which it was beyond its province to interpose, arising 
from weakness or impatience. And there are two factors, 
as powers, which are affected by a want of distribution of 
energy in the mental powers — the powers of suggestion 
and modulation ; so that it is not so much they that are 
disturbed, as the process of combination which is dis- 
turbed, because they do not act in harmony. The fault 
may be a defect in either case. Or it may be an abnormal 
activity of the suggestive faculty, the elaborative faculty 
not being able to weave into shape the materials as they 
are passed back to it. Not that by any means this activity 
could be represented as so much surplus energy. It is the 
same force applied momentarily in a different direction; 
and viciously applied, because it is not distributed so as 
to sustain the modulating agency. Such action of the 
imagination is simply spasmodic, and just as much a sign 
of vigour as tetanus might be of muscular power. It is not 
enough, therefore, that the writer's force is at its maximum, 
it must also be, as to its two factors, in eqxiilihrio. With 
diminished total energy a finer result will be attained, 
than with increased energy disproportionately applied. The 
moment any plethora is felt, the diastole begins to remedy 
the disturbance and restore the diminishing clearness. 
Otherwise not merely will some of the suggestions founder, 
but the elements which were about to consolidate in their 
totality will be dispersed. To obviate that, a cessation of 
the process is necessary, and a revision, to the extent that 



126 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

the attention has failed in its first effort to meet its extra 
engagements— has failed to neutralize the resistance offered 
by the difficulties of the process augmented by the 
difficulties of the situation. The two functions must again 
concur in amending the relations of the thought to their 
mutual satisfaction. And they will do so in the converse 
order from that in which they concurred to fashion the 
combination which now they are called upon to recon- 
stitute ; each in that ratio being called out or withheld, in 
which, for the original draught, it had unduly been de- 
preciated or exalted. 
Cor. — This tendency to disturbance exists in all composition, 
even the most negligent. And, properly controlled, it is the 
very springboard of effective composition. It is felt, therefore, 
most decidedly in the experience of the best writers, who 
precisely are those born with the best resources for managing 
it. A writer who has the advantage of a thinking that is 
highly complex, must share its partial disadvantages for rapid 
improvisation. . His tendency is to involve fresh suggestions 
with every turn of his argument. But counterworking that, 
and with a view to the summary extinction of those intermin- 
able ramifications, which make it oftentimes uncertain what is 
the leading idea, is a regulative faculty, moving abreast of the 
tumultuary flux of ideas, and determining what phases of the 
thought are to be rejected, what subordinated, and what re- 
served for a more special expansion in arrear. His resource 
lies in the exceptional rapidity with which he is able to pass 
from the final adjustment of a thought to the rehearsal of an 
impending thought, and from the pioneer stage back into the 
complementary one of adjustment. 



OF QUANTITY. 127 



21. 



The correspondences, which take effect in the relations of 
the suggestive and regulative faculties during composition, 
are founded on the reciprocity of relation between Quantity 
and Quality. It is self-evident, that you cannot connect two 
ideas unless they have some common tenor and significance 
(their quality), or, on the other hand, expound that relation- 
ship, unless both, and in their individuality (their numerical 
distinctness, their quantity), be co-present. For example, a 
historian, treating of the causes of a revolution, sums them up 
in three propositions. This has been accomplished by their 
mutual relevance, depending ultimately on their separate sig- 
nificance ; which has been the agency in limiting them to 
that precise number as a maximum. The quality in this 
instance has determined the quantity. Suppose, however, 
that there could not have been less than three. In that case 
the effect depends upon the comprehensiveness of each of the 
three propositions ; and quantity has become the exponent of 
quality. For if another writer requires a larger compass to 
produce three truths of equal dimensions, if his complete 
truths only alternate with partial truths, it is evident that the 
other is the more comprehensive thinker. If you allow 
an author to unite two propositions separately obvious, you 
may produce a subtle result. For by showing its unexpected 
relation to a principle, he may have glorified a fact which 
was commonplace, and even the principle, by developing 
unexpectedly its wealth of application. Or conversely, by 
reading into connection with other truths a truth that in iso- 
lation was original, you may make it commonplace. This 
proposition : " Fathers of the church are no more to be relied 



128 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

on as authorities in doctrine than lay authors," is docked con- 
siderably as to its impressiveness by a preceding statement : 
"There have been many heterodox professors of divinity and 
freethinking bishops." The function of quantity is thus 
precisely to determine the variation of quality. For when I 
say that the one expounds the other, I do not mean by way of 
illustrating its brilliance ; but simply that it enforces the other, 
whether in the way of magnifying or depreciating it — of show- 
ing it up as subtle or non-subtle, just according as it is either. 
It is a most significant truth, that condensation is a test 
of high thinking, and for the profound reason, that it 
depends in such great measure on the quality of the think- 
ing. An accidental advantage, therefore, it is not ; nor one 
arising where, we might imagine, it could best be dispensed 
with; but one arising from necessity, since it is pre- 
cisely vast combinations that are the most subtle, exquisite 
transitions that are the most just. A great writer is 
dissatisfied with such relations as do not cause his mean- 
ing to subtend a definite angle in the preceding thought. 
The inferior writer has usages of transition known only to 
himself. When he is at a loss for a connection, he simply 
couples his ideas formally together as one, two, three, 
without troubling himself to ascertain what cross-division 
he may have made, or whether there is any coherence in 
his chain of thought at all. Strictly speaking, these are 
transitions only in the sense that creeping is walking. 
That he does not write very much absolute nonsense is just 
owing to this, that he evades definite logical forms of articu- 
lating his thoughts. It is not that, having to use the 
looser forms of transition, he has no occasion for those that 
are more severe, but that, being illogical, he instinctively 



OF QUANTITY. 129 

evades them. For confine him entirely to these formulae, 
and you will find not that he braces himself up correspond- 
ingly to wield them, but that he will commit himself more 
than ever ; so closely does the sharpness of a man's transi- 
tions depend upon his logical sagacity. Making an infre- 
quent use of certain forms of combination in his ordinary 
composition, he makes inevitably a disproportionate use of 
those which * remain ; thus inverting the practice of all 
conscientious artists, which is to apply with discrimination 
the most telling transitions, by continually turning over the 
whole complement of transitions. 
Cor. — The functions of Quantit}^ and Quality, in their inter- 
connection, form the essential principle of what we mean by 
Style. The varieties of imagery and mood are quite 
secondary. It is not that these primary distinctions are 
abstract principles, on which the others may rest theoretically ; 
nor merely that they are vital functions, with which the 
varieties of expression may coalesce and interpenetrate. 
They are superlative facts in all composition. The more 
catholic, therefore, a style is — the more it relies upon sound 
and original thinking, and rapid precision of movement — the 
less it is imitable ; in part, because it is wanting in the mere 
vividness and the mere agility of the secondary attributes of 
expression (and which alone can be imitated), and in part 
because it depends on an organic force that is incommuni- 
cable. Hence another secret of the vulgarity of imitation ; 
for a man can only copy that which is extra-essential, whether 
existing in or out of connection with what is really vital. 
Hence, too, the utter impotence of charging plagiarism upon 
a style that resembles another, so long as the coincidence is 
in the cardinal functions; as if by possibility any writer 



130 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

could counterfeit a manner that is essentially inimitable, and 
as if it were not a libellous misreading of his independent 
merits to suppose him coveting what, being incommunicable 
from himself, he must first have divorced from his own 
manner in order to counterfeit. 

Section II. Of Extension. 

22. 

Since the proposition is for Style the unit of length, it 
must internally be complete. Directly or indirectly it takes 
part in propagating the thought; and ex hypothesi is an 
integral portion of the whole series. Every such unit, 
whether disinterestedly, and for the welfare of the series, or 
selfishly, and as having a stake in the total application of the 
line of thought, is compelled to be distinct, and to realise a 
specific identity, with whatsoever detail it may be expressed 
in the text, or in whatsoever variety of form it might other- 
wise be expressed. There can be no range of thought so great, 
as to extend the unit of length in proportion, nor any so short, 
as to diminish the necessity for insulating each proposition. 
The onus of bearing the thought may be shared by the 
subordinate members of a proposition, but only in so far as 
they help to preserve its unity. It need not be simple ; 
but it must be single. This unity is the necessity for 
expression, into whatever complexity a thought may run. 
A man may wish to compose a sentence of hyperbolical 
length, but unless he writes nonsense he does not lose the 
unity; so long as he continues to add to the sentence, 
he is simply deferring it ; and his subordinate ideas them- 
selves will be capable each of being explicated into a 
totality similar to that which he is seeking to evade. 



OF QUANTITY. 131 

Cor. — As the basis of Quality in Style is the same as that of 
logical Quantity, so the basis of Quantity in Style is identical 
with that of Quality in Logic. Every thought fully mounted 
for transition has first a distinct meaning, in order that it 
may have a direction, or what is technically called a drift, 
whether it is to be regarded as 'a synthesis of compatible 
elements, or a disjunction of elements that analytically are 
involved in each other. Every proposition depends, therefore, 
for its coherence on the copula, no matter whether that be 
negative or positive. 

23. 

The principle of movement in composition is from one 
complete proposition to another, and so on indefinitely, pro- 
vided the nexus is preserved between each. Every proposi- 
tion thus becomes alternately complementary to that which 
precedes and that which follows. The two conditions of this 
movement are, positively, that of advance, and, negatively, 
that of connection. Mere succession without connection is 
not progress. Discoursing on it matters not what, I an- 
nounce, first, " that in savage times men are much more 
liable wantonly to provoke each other to bloodshed than in 
civilised times," and, next, " that we are at present in the 
middle of harvest." Now a first thought, in relation to any 
theme whatsoever, is excused from being directly in connec- 
tion, on the express understanding that it will take the first 
chance of ingratiating itself with something that will lead it 
into that connection. Instead of that, in this instance, it is 
as far from the possible theme as ever, and, together with 
proposition No. 2, the exponent of a principle that would 
reduce all expression to a series of detached remarks, relevant 



132 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

to nothing, and as rigorously introductory to nothing. The 
position of the thought is constantly shifting, and so rapidly, as 
to make it impossible to say at what angle the new idea meets 
the old. The vice of the case lies in its being merely the 
repetition of the initial principle. We do not advance, simply 
because we are always beginning ; and, unless we connect, we 
never get beyond that beginning. 

But it does not follow, on the other hand, that if we state 
the same proposition over again with a little variation, we 
are fulfilling the law of connection which is outraged in set- 
ting side by side two disjunct ideas. For in such a case it is 
evidently the minimum of variation which ought to be aimed at. 
And it is impossible to multiply to any extent the circumstan- 
tial variations of the same substantial thought, even if that were 
of any use. But this is just what is demanded, viz., that the 
same idea shall be reiterated indefinitely (short of absolute re- 
petition), so as not to encroach upon the identity of any other 
thought. Now certain thoughts allow of no permutation; 
absolute truths have little patience for being tampered with. 
And the writer will find that, with every succeeding change of 
his capital theme, he is further from the identity he had 
agreed to preserve, and more and more in league with the 
difference which he was committed to avoid. So far, in fact, 
from evading the impropriety of advance without connection 
— which was proved to consist in repeating merely the initial 
impulse — this is a gross aggravation of it, the truth being that 
the initial movement is repeated, and with staleness of matter 
superadded to sameness of principle. 

An abrupt transition is quite a common thing in writing. 
Thus : " The prisoners having no other refuge, saw one in 
the sea. The weltering billows might at least hide them 



OF QUANTITY. 133 

from their enemies ; those hellish faces through the gather- 
ing mists of death they might at least shut out. Not so : 
not thus were they to be dismissed. The Syrian sea is an 
inhospitable chamber of the great central Christian lake." 
Understood in its possible relation to what goes before, this 
last sentence, so abrupt, cannot have any reference to the 
change of death as affected by the volition of the prisoners. 
If drown these wretches must, the more turbulently hostile 
the sea, the better — the more in secret friendly to their 
melancholy purpose, the more solicitous to their despairing 
mood. The sentence, therefore, can only indicate either 
compassion on the part of the captors, or sarcasm on the 
writer's part at their meditating some more elaborately 
cruel form of death for the prisoners than suffering them to 
drown themselves. In the context, however, it runs: — 
" Nothing rose to view but a barren rock," to which, in the 
sequel, the captives swam out; and being recalled under 
promises of amnesty for the past, were treacherously 
massacred. The reference points onward, then, to the 
shelteriug rock, not to the devouring waves — the sea was 
hospitable to the extent of providing a rock ; and it was in 
spite of its general inhospitality, and not because of it, that 
the catastrophe was deferred. The transition is virtually 
the same with the principle of the initial movement in 
any piece of composition. Meantime, its relation to 
what succeeds is certain; and it is only by picking 
up the connection to windward of the spot where the 
thought flagged and faltered in tacking, that we are 
able to ascertain what advance has been made. Even 
here it is true that there is no advance without connec- 
tion, where the one is precocious and the other dubious. 



134 THE LOGIC OF STYLE. 

The advance from general inhospitality to the barren rock is 
only from a principle to a detail, or, if you prefer it, from a 
rule to an exception — according as you find it in or out of 
keeping with the shabbiness of the coast. And as to the 
connection, what angle of incidence is that, to which for the 
life of us we could not adjust our instruments, without an 
interregnum of confusion or suspense between alternative 
issues ? How of all modes of transition should that be the 
coryphaeus and the nonpareil ? There are two criteria of 
progress in composition — advance in logic, and advance in 
information ; which may be directly or inversely as each 
other. Meantime it is sufficient that all advance in logic 
is directly and not inversely as logical connection. What 
we mean by reason and consequent is the recognition, in 
abstract speech, of a universal fact in nature ; and to express 
the relation between them is impossible except by assuming 
their duality. We say accordingly: I strike this match, 
and therefore it begins to blaze. The matter we may know 
to be identical ; but it is the form, by which expression is 
bound, both fore and aft, with a necessity as eternal as its 
inability to fix by any fraction of a second the instant in 
which the one phenomenon shoots into the other amidships. 
But what become the forms of a material substance, under 
various conditions in nature, are just the material for a 
formal existence like expression. Being distinct as forms 
of a common fact or substance in the physical world, they 
are distinct as separate facts, in the world of expression, 
under a common form. The two stand to each other con- 
versely : advance in the natural sphere being from phase to 
phase, in the formal, from ultimatum to ultimatum, and the 
nexus in the natural sphere being one of material, in the 



OF QUANTITY. 135 

other one of form. Hence the nexus in the illustration is 
absolute, founding on physical identity. And similarly, the 
advance is absolute, from the one idea to its companion. It 
would be impossible to gauge any degree of advance, without 
assuming some standard of connection, by which it might 
be expounded. And consider simply how fiercely hostile 
two things must be, which, in spite of so perfect a nexus, 
are yet distinct. Eeal connection, therefore, being removed 
as far from total identity as from total difference, it is self- 
evident, that real advance is as far from total difference as 
from total identity. 
Cor. — There is no prerogative mode of transition in style, any 
more than there is a prerogative velocity of descent for a 
heavy body, falling a hundred feet, over a light one. Each is 
indispensable for its own special function. Nevertheless as 
the ponderous body will create more heat when it strikes the 
earth then the light body, so a series of thoughts, with a 
single order of interconnection (if such a thing were possible), 
would be more or less rigorous than another, provided the 
principle of connection there were uniform also. Most 
passages therefore, and all of any length, exhibit an average 
cohesion in their transitions. 

24. 

The necessity, for composition, of a duality of ideas to act in 
combination is also its limit. The principle of extension in 
thought has nothing to do with an indefinite series of ideas, 
except by way of providing the elementary conditions of each. 
In the middle, or at the end, the series does no more than 
repeat its experiences at the beginning: it is simply the 
bridge of which these are the arches. It is not they, there- 



136 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

fore, that are subdivisions from the series, but the series which 
is an accumulation of such integral portions. And in every 
case of transposition or transformation of the larger masses, it 
is they that regulate the result — not they through any section 
or whole, but the section through them. 

In the process, which in composition is continually 
going forward, of alternate grasping and releasing by the 
attention — grasping that it may release, and releasing 
that it may grasp — the motion of style is necessarily 
modified by the number of ideas that can be received at 
the same moment in sufficient force to be co-ordinated. 
The process is one taking place with the full conscious- 
ness of the writer. But concurrently with this, there may 
be a subconscious process, moulding the thought as a 
whole into conformity with one dominant idea, not 
dispersed through the thoughts separately, but secretly 
determining the bias of all These influence each other 
very greatly ; it depends, for example, on the rigid con- 
nection of its members, that a train of thought completes 
its curriculum round a given centre, so as to produce a 
symmetrical result ; and on the stability of its focus (which 
may be complex, but must be distinctly conceived), that a 
series of ideas forms a recognisable whole. What, there- 
fore, in theory is the evolution of a determinate conception 
through its separate phases, is in practice the setting of these 
into mosaic — the conscious formation of successive details 
to a totality subconsciously fixed, subconsciously regulative. 
That totality, having been reached, may be regarded con- 
sciously as a whole; in which event the principle is 
reversed, the totality is recognized explicitly, and the 
details implicitly. Such a mode of regarding the effect of 



OF QUANTITY. 137 

a piece of composition is, therefore, the exact converse of 
the stylic. Style, being concerned with the process of 
movement, has nothing to do with results. In its own way, 
it has accounted for every item in the whole composition — 
for every slide and pirouette, for every jerk and oscillation 
— not a crevice remains for explanation. Any other mode 
of explaining the facts must transcend style, and ex 
hypothesi cannot be stylic; it is simply rhetorical. Now 
evidently the same function, which deals with the effect of 
the sections of a piece, deals a fortiori with the totality of 
the piece. And the rhetorical relation of any piece being 
that in which it is a universal, and the stylic that -in wy^ 
it is regarded in its particulars, the same rhetorical function, 
which treats of every complete piece in relation to its 
sections, treats also of these in relation to their subsections, 
and mediately to the individual reticulations of the latter 
in style. — Another mode of viewing a passage, quite dis- 
tinct from either of these, but rhetorical also in its applica- 
tion, is by estimating its general brilliance of connection. 
" Most passages, and all of any length, exhibit an average 
cohesion in their transitions." But the total estimate in 
such a case founds solely on the aggregation of individual 
brilliances, separately noted in any review for purposes of 
style. — Casually, of course, the last thought of a section 
may inosculate as closely with the first of the succeeding 
one, as if the latter were simply a continuation of the self- 
same idea. Indeed the more closely a writer mediates his 
thoughts the one through the other, in relation to the total 
idea, there will be the more difficulty in determining where 
his new sections begin, apart from some mechanical device 
for advertising such a transition. Which artificial device, 



138 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

as we have it now-a-days, is quite inadequate to distinguish 
the hierarchies of articulation, of section and subsection; 
and is in fact often misleading, because it confounds what 
is co-ordinate with what is subordinate. But a writer has no 
business to play fast and loose with the one distinction that 
is recognized so sacredly, that viz. between the section and 
the proposition. He may, if he likes, turn a waggon-load 
of small paragraphs into one, with a view to keeping the 
resources of the paragraph for the grouping of the larger 
masses of his thought. But in that case, he ought to be 
the very last person who should wish to distribute one 
section into two. It is very ungenteel to straddle back 
against a door-post, one leg in the room, and the other in 
the lobby. Indefeasibly his section is one and continuous, 
notwithstanding the mechanical division. And when a 
French novelist writes : " Jacques could not collect his 
thoughts — Why? — He was mad," — in three parallel lines, 
we pass it without remark, because it is too furious an 
exaggeration to be harmful, or to escape anybody's notice. 
On the other hand, when a section opens, for example, with 
a " therefore," we take the first conception to be a resultant 
of the preceding section as a whole, and not of its last pro- 
position. If the two sections are specifically unconnected 
in their drift, our author should either give a different turn 
to the inaugural proposition, or omit it altogether. 
Cok. — No writer holds more than one total thought at a time 
in relation to any other, whether that be one already com- 
pleted, or one that suggests itself as the resolution of the 
thought under formation. This number is a constant in all 
composition. Any variation between man and man occurs in 
two ways. In the one instance, it depends upon the rapidity 



OF QUANTITY. 139 

with which the individual composes. In the other, it de- 
pends on the complexity of the conception. Virtually there is 
often a plurality of suggestions moving abreast at once, and 
threatening to break the critical nexus; and there arises a 
counteracting force, not to extend the limit, however, but to 
cause the thoughts to travel backwards and adapt themselves 
to it. The machinery, by which the attention is thus vir- 
tually expanded, and the volume of the thought increased, is 
that of Intension. 



Section III. Of Intension. 

25. 

There are certain relations (such as that of cause and effect), 
to which, from their essential coherence, it is indifferent per se 
whether they shall be expressed in one proposition or in two. 
These are of a bivalvular form, that no compression will hide, 
and no extension disunite. In the second place, there are 
many thoughts which are indivisible, and can only be stated 
independently; for example, "The rate of discount varies 
with the degree of commercial prosperity." But finally, 
there are certain conceptions, which cannot adequately be 
expressed, unless their special relation is expressed within the 
proposition ; whose totality is not complete, is not significant, 
without a limitation. They resemble the second class of 
ideas, in so far as they are formally single ; but are unlike, in 
so far as they approximate to being substantially dual pro- 
positions. And it is in this latter point that they resemble 
the first class, while they differ from that by not containing 
their two factors in the same exact equilibrium. By way of 
illustration, I may say, with reference to the distinction in 



140 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

point, "This class of marsupial propositions resembles the 
first, only in so far as it approximates to a division of sub- 
stance;" and virtually I have expressed by intension all that 
could be expressed by extending the position into a separate 
phrase. 

If you assert, without its accompanying limitation, the 
fact that " all persons holding property exercise the right of 
suffrage, except women," you assert what is false. If again 
it is expressed thus, " No women have the right of suffrage," 
the fact of the exception is still omitted ; and there is an 
appeal made to the imagination of the reader to supply 
what is involved, viz. that every one else has it. Which 
appeal is either premature or gratuitous ; since if the reader 
does not know anything about the fact, he will not gain it 
from such a bare statement ; and if he does know it, and all 
that remains is to insist upon it oratorically, you forego the 
chance of parading it with that special emphasis which the 
discarded relation expressly secures. The thought thus 
being coaxed into a simple proposition, there flies into the 
wilderness the very point of having a complex formula. 
Nor, if you express it in a double proposition, will you 
whistle your hawk back from the wilderness. For express 
yourself thus: "All men have the right of suffrage — but 
women have it not," — and it will be evident that you have 
simply adjusted the. two facts as particular to particular. 
And meantime, the logical principle, which is radiantly ac- 
knowledged in the proposition as it stood originally, and of 
whose organic force this is the complete abnegation, is that 
of the universal to the particular. This form of statement 
has its own use in the economy of transitions. By which I 
mean to infer, that it only comes into collision with other 



OF QUANTITY. 141 

forms, upon a question arising of differential propriety. 
And on the other hand, I infer that it is liable to be drawn 
into spurious comparisons, by the perversions or neglect of 
its own principle — by a writer's treating, as if it were 
subordinate, what is of cardinal import, and using the 
machinery of inter-propositional connection for what is 
strictly intra-propositional. 
Cor. — Even in a mere literary fashion, the principle of 
subordination is of use to preserve the thought against diverg- 
ing from the main issue. Were there no such resource, 
co-ordinate and subordinate relations would be confounded 
together. A ad consequently, it relieves the pressure that 
otherwise must overtake the function of simple transition; 
especially where the new limb of the proposition expresses 
no specific limitation, but a casual addition to the thought. 
Thus in reporting on the fact that Major X. (who had recently 
returned to this country from the East) was about to publish 
a volume of travels, the parenthetical clause is admissible, 
which would have been out of place as an independent truth 
between that fact and the disjunct fact, that the Major's 
experiences had extended over a great number of years. In- 
deed it would be admissible even as a separate fact {e.g. Major 
X. is about to publish a volume of travels — He has lately re- 
turned from the East) provided something else be put in the 
stead of the third sentence ; upon the principle that you may 
ask a person to dine with yourself and a confidential friend, 
whom you would not ask to dine with your friends pro- 
miscuously. Hence another value of the process of subordina- 
tion, as an alternative mode of varying the form of transition 
— the first form in which the illustration stood being a variety 
of the last — apart from the resource of making the clausal 



142 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

addition in any thought the specific link of connection between 
it and the next. 

26. 

Some machinery, then, must plainly be devised for incorporat- 
ing into a proposition, without offence, collateral or supple- 
mentary statements, that, if explicated in full, would disturb 
the principle of progression, and for recognising as subordinate 
those which perforce had incorporated themselves in the 
uncompleted thinking. Statements there are, which may be 
preserved as additions, without encumbering the conception, 
and be identified with it, without abating their significance. 
The abuses of the process are threefold. (1) The apparatus of 
subordination may be applied to an idea which ought to be 
explicated in full further on, perhaps with a whole flourish 
of pendants of its own. (2) There is the case in which a 
suggestion is introduced, hanging merely by some happy-go- 
lucky connection, or quite irrelevant. Greater laxity is allowed 
to a subordinating principle than to one of co-ordination. But 
whatever tells in the case of the one tells in a corresponding 
degree in the case of the other. (3) There is a chance of the 
principle of the minor clause being indefinitely repeated. 
This is the chief danger. And it is this which makes any 
exaggeration of the others so much to be dreaded: in the 
second instance, it would be to add irrelevance to irrelevance, 
impertinence within impertinence. The abstract ideal and 
the practical, with regard to the statement of relative truth, 
have no such intimate connection with each other, as in the case 
of the integral statement of truth absolute. A single state- 
ment of truth in the abstract, that should include in it im- 
plicitly every other truth, would be essentially compendious. 



OF QUANTITY. 143 

A single statement of truth in its subordination — in its pro- 
cessions and divisions, its oppositions and concessions — would 
include every express relation of every truth to every other : 
it would be essentially pancyclopasdic. The attention could 
not yield to the strain for a moment ; it would not even try 
to prefigure the eternally advancing, eternally receding con- 
clusion. It bends, therefore, to the same limitations in inten- 
sion as in extension. Being flushed from the primary 
thought, and overflowing, it returns to fill the lacuna which it 
had anticipated in the thought that succeeds ; its practical 
limit not interfering with, but specifically enhancing any 
purposes of literary propriety — of perspicuity, or economy, 
or elegance. 

The medium for the distribution of the energy of subor- 
dination in thought is again the faculty of attention. It is 
not attention, however (any more than in the preceding 
case), in the sense of that which is exhausted during the 
evolution of thought, and every exertion of which involves 
a separate decrement in the stock of available energy. For 
so far as exhaustion goes, it does not matter to the reader 
whether that is effected by fifty curt propositions, or by 
twenty voluminous ones. Fatigue is no independent 
criterion, therefore; and even as a symptom it is incon- 
stant and precarious. Moreover, its degree, when it does 
move in an appreciable ratio, is itself otherwise predeter- 
mined, viz. by the intellectual conditions for apprehending 
rapidly the bearing of a new thought, and for sustaining it 
without impatience through its development to its technical 
sublation in the thought which succeeds. It is not atten- 
tion in its length that is meant, but in its breadth — the 
capacity for holding a number of conceptions simultane- 



1-44 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

ously, so as to form a unity, varying in complexity accord- 
ing to the clearness with which these may be combined. 
Cor — The principle of certain writings conducted apparently 
in defiance of this limit is really exoteric. The structure of 
law documents is often according to a coarse and very 
different method. The various clauses, instead of being em- 
braced in a unity of consciousness, are held together in the 
memory. This, psychologically, is the distinction ; the unity 
in transition being often merely arbitrary and precarious. 

27. 
Every proposition must be either simple or complex. If 
simple, however, it may be so by having rejected the chance 
of forming a member of a complex proposition ; and if com- 
plex, it may be so by refusing to have its members scattered 
into separate propositions. The permutations, according to 
which the several limbs of an original complex thought may 
be arranged, are very numerous. Only each of these, as ulti- 
mately placed, is still one of the two alternative forms, either a 
simple thought or a compound, and is alternatively that which 
it is, by having refused to incarnate itself under the correla- 
tive form. This is the simple case, in which the reader sees 
all the apparent alternatives spread out on the page before 
him at once. Xor is it worth while inquiring particularly 
into the hidden alternatives; — what might have happened, 
viz. in the way of suppression, before the thought was per- 
mitted to stand as it is. All that moves agreeably to the 
same principles. So in the case of revision : if a new thought 
is to be admitted, it must be either as an integral fact, or as a 
fact in affiliation with some other fact (must be a leading fact, 
or a secondary, or an offshoot again from that), whether it be 



OF QUANTITY. 145 

as a total increment, or as a substitute for some other fact 
that has been suppressed. Any alteration must take effect 
either (1) by way of addition, or (2) by way of retractation, 
or (3) of both combined, the new fact being promoted vice the 
previous fact superannuated. — Even here of course there is a 
mode of keeping the thought in life, viz. the appendix, or 
note ; which may radiate from the original suggestion of the 
text at various angles, and with varying degrees of importance. 
Only its scope is limited ; otherwise, upon the same principle, 
a succession of notes, taking off from each other, might be 
continued ad infinitum. And besides, exhibiting in itself the 
same principles of composition, which govern the primary 
text, the note has no special value as illustrating how these 
work. — So far there is nothing to alter — to multiply or 
diminish — the forms under which the result must appear. 
But these processes throw a very searching light upon the 
secret rationale of variety in composition, and a very signifi- 
cant one upon the reciprocal relations of transition and 
subordination. Interpose a thought between two complex 
thoughts, and possibly you will attract the allegiance of their 
near members to itself, transmuting what is left into a simple 
transitional phase from an ultra-transitional. Eliminate a 
proposition, and the thoughts, between which it has stood, 
may coalesce. Each resultant form, however, will still arise, 
just by rejecting the form in which it would not be what it is. 
This simply is the differential principle in Quantity, which 
by the side of Quality is too apt to appear flaccid and 
meagre, and which these external modes of variation tend 
vastly to enhance and expound, by illustrating the organic 
nature of transitional connection. 

To say that one thought may influence the form of 



146 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

another standing in connection with it, is to say nothing. 
It gives no clue to the degree or the kind of variation which 
may be involved. For, transition being known to be the 
most important matter in composing, we should each of us 
naturally incline to look upon any modification arising 
within that as very trifling. And as a rule it is so : so long 
as the change descends upon the subordinate clauses it is 
inconsiderable. " An immense majority of the Eoman 
people never lighted a candle, unless sometimes in the 
early dawn. And this custom was the custom of all 
nations that lived round the Mediterranean." Let the final 
clause be eliminated from the first proposition, and it will 
make no difference to the connection of the two sentences ; 
since the reference in the latter is to the rule, not to the 
exception. Upon the same principle, the corresponding 
clause in the text of this sentence, which I have suppressed, 
ought to be superfluous. "The daylight furnished gratis 
was certainly undeniable in its quality. . . . Seneca even in 
his own luxurious period called those men by ugly names 
who lived chiefly by candle-light." Yet no; there is a 
hiatus. For why " ugly " ? Because the men were too 
ugly themselves to come abroad in the day-time, or because 
they were luxurious, or perhaps because they were candle- 
making, which being such a public disgrace, itself required 
to be prosecuted by artificial (to wit candle) light ? For no 
such reason, but for one more obvious, yet still puzzling, 
because one of several more or less obvious reasons, — which 
is supplied by the intercalated phrase, " quite sufficient for 
all purposes that were honest." The difference of variation 
in the first instance is at its minimum, in the other at its 
maximum, the complex proposition in the one case being 



OF QUANTITY. 147 

virtually a simple thought, in the other virtually a 
dual. 

Now let both clauses, instead of being suppressed, 
undergo the other change, that of elevation into an in- 
dependent thought. Immediately the values are reversed. 
The subordinate member of the first instance is seen to be 
incompatible with the seriousness of the transition that is 
made to rest upon it ; while, in the other case, the altera- 
tion makes very little real differeDce. The degree of varia- 
tion is now at its maximum in the first case, and at its 
minimum in the second. 

The difference of variation, therefore, exists at a maximum 
or a minimum, according as in each case the alternative 
orders of circumstance take effect ; the same condition in 
either producing the opposite result to that which it 
produces in the other, and the same ratio of effect being 
produced in the one as is produced by the opposite con- 
dition in the other. The general principle, however, is (1) 
that of intermodification (and not of suppression), and (2) 
that of a maximum change under such intermodification — a 
subordinate clause being raised to the rank of a separate 
proposition. Now if this is the ordinary case, it will not do 
simply to say that one proposition affects the form of its 
neighbour ; which implies that the change is quite incon- 
siderable. Especially the degree of the variation requires 
to be specified, when it is the exception to the second rule 
that is to be taken into account, and the change is a 
minimum, the subordinate clause being virtually a co- 
ordinate already, and benefiting little by its promotion. 
Still more peremptorily does the nature of the variation 
require to be adjusted, when (the first law being violated) it 



1-48 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

is a suppression, and not a mere alteration of form ; since 
that suppression brings this last exceptional minimum 
change of the subordinate clause to the normal maximum, 
and the first normal maximum change to an exceptional 
minimum. It would be utterly vain, therefore, to look in 
the mere form of a proposition for a clue to its transitional 
value; and just for this reason, that there are only the two 
forms — compromise between them there is none. No more 
palpable distinction of form can exist between a pot with a 
handle and a pot without. And it is all the more readily 
assumed, that the substantial value of each is uniformly the 
same; while none could be more equivocal. Meantime, the 
possible modification that may be produced by one pro- 
position upon another is modification enough ; in the first 
instance the sentence following the clause "unless per- 
haps," etc., determines that that clause, if introduced, shall 
not be co-ordinate with it, but must be subordinate to 
the preceding thought; and in the second instance, 
the subordinate clause determines that the succeeding 
proposition shall not supplant it, but must stand 
apart. 
Cor. — The interaction of the two fundamental processes in 
composition is the ground not more of certain average effects 
in style, than of certain broad differences. No man writes 
without using both ; but they may be used in different pro- 
portions, so as to distinguish even diverse nationalities. And 
a tariff might even be fixed for certain artificial stimulants, 
according to the results of their physiological action upon the 
several processes of composition. The effect of wine, for 
example, appears to be that of inducing a more brusque and 
discontinuous mode of writing, and to discourage a more 



OF QUANTITY. 149 

elaborate style of movement, the tendency to which is doubt- 
less exaggerated by opium. 

More immediately, however, the power of literary con- 
densation depends upon a knowledge of the manner in which 
these processes mutually affect each other. Most people seem 
to think that the way to condense is by suppression. Let a 
writer run his pen through a sentence here, and a clause there, 
and he does all that is required. Especially, it would be said, 
let the carnage descend most heavily on the clauses. JSTow 
really it is not the derivative and parenthetical clauses that 
harbour diffuseness, but the garrulous or querulous iteration 
of the same truth in successive propositions. Nevertheless 
let the clauses be thinned out. And let your redundant main 
propositions be dismissed at the same time. But now, where 
many people imagine the work of compression to be over, the 
important part of it is just beginning. Only instead of com- 
mencing with the secondary clauses, we commence with the 
primary ; and instead of lessening the number of subordina- 
tions, we increase them, by making the co-ordinate propositions 
coalesce, and subordinating one to the other. 

All practical instruction in the art of composition flows 
naturally out of these principles. As for mechanical criteria, 
they are of no use. Direct the tyro to write in long sentences, 
or in short sentences, and you tell him nothing. There may 
be more difference between two short propositions than 
between a short and a long. A thought, for example, with a 
significant exception attached to it, and that turns back upon 
itself at a very acute angle, may make more demand upon the 
attention than one which carries the leading idea through a 
whole series of antistrophes. To talk of brevity, with a dis- 
tinction like that concealed under it, is to give no hint of the 



150 LOGIC OF STYLE. 

real case, to a pupil who measures results by the square foot, 
and possibly to encourage a vicious style of writing, by leav- 
ing him to suppose that one curt proposition is as good as 
another. Now a staccato movement of thought is not merely 
one of the most offensive, but specifically the most unpromis- 
ing of all the modes of composition. In its own degree the 
most lively, it is in continuity the most monotonous. And 
in a higher sense it is vicious, because it generates irreflec- 
tion ; which is a vice, just in proportion as the majority of 
truths are relative. The most effective mode of statement is 
that of a truth in its relations. Accordingly your true rhe- 
torician aims chiefly at such results, not because they are the 
most elaborate, or the most uncommon, but simply because 
they are the most telling. Fantasias he can spin by the 
hour, when the mood impels him, but his preference is for a 
severer brilliance. He trusts, for his music, to precision, and, 
for his artistry, to the rigour of his proportions. It is here 
that your ordinary rhetorician discovers another weakness. 
Having finished his tale of short propositions, he thinks to 
take it out in long boa-constrictor periods, with a good deal 
less of the fantasia, and a very great deal more of the spin- 
ning. For as there are effects of the turkey-cock order, so 
there is a class of people who go about gobbling upon a very 
limited amount of provocation — afflicted with a sort of sodden 
enthusiasm, borrowed from the memory of platform excite- 
ment, or from imitations of such memories. Now the undula- 
tion and the swoop, the strenuousness and the ease, which 
ought to mark the rhetorical wave are in general all very well 
— for the sea. Nevertheless, if his foam does not look like 
lather, nor the movement of the water betray a surreptitious 
besom — so long as his waves slop and lunge, and rally for an 



OF QUANTITY. 151 

instant before the fall, and flounce over in mist and thunder 
— a man does welL And unquestionably, even a pretentious 
effect is not nearly so bad as the practice of involution, when 
carried to an excess. For that there is no defence. Never- 
theless, it may arise sometimes from an exceptional power of 
manoeuvring complicated truth, and not from slovenliness, 
which in literature is often a species of locomotor ataxy. 
And for that reason it is not to be regarded as something 
very heinous by the side of the tendency to extreme brevity. 
Of the two it is that which promises best for amendment ; 
since the positive tendency in it is more easily checked than 
the partial tendency in the other is likely to be developed. 
This is true, however, only so long as each is regarded speci- 
fically as a tendency : as an intermittent effect the subsultory 
order of proposition is of great use, but the other never. And 
this is the rationale of the value of the short proposition 
generally, as opposed to the long, either per se being indifferent 
— viz. that as an effect alternating with a proposition of 
moderate length, it is better than the other ; it behaves better 
in combination. But it is not the normal proposition ; that 
is calculated from the medium, not from either extreme. 
The proposition of medium length is the constant, and is 
relieved most effectively by the one variable which is not the 
most cumbrous ; upon the same principle that, in waltzing, 
it is better for a man — he being the active or determining 
force — to have a partner shorter than himself, rather than 
one who is proportionately taller. 



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INDEX. 



Acton's Modern Cookery 39 

A ird's Blackstone Economised 39 

Alpine Club Map of Switzerland 33 

Alpine Guide (The) »• 33 

Amos's Jurisprudence 10 

Primer of the Constitution 10 

Anderson's Strength of Materials 20 

Armstrong's Organic Chemistry 20 

Arnold's (Dr.) Christian Life 29 

Lectures on Modern History 2 

Miscellaneous Works 12 

School Sermons 29 

Sermons 29 

(T. ) Manual of English Literature 12 

Arnould's Life of Lord Denman 7 

Atherstone Priory 39 

Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson ... 13 

Ayre's Treasury of Bible Knowledge 38 

Bacon's Essays, by Whately 10 

Life and Letters, by Spedding ... 10 

Works 10 

Bains Mental and Moral Science n 

on the Senses and Intellect n 

Baker's Two Works on Ceylon 32 

Ball's Guide to the Central Alps 38 

Guide to the Western Alps 38 

Guide to the Eastern Alps 38 

Becker's Charicles and Gallus 34 

Black's Treatise on Brewing 39 

Blackley's German- English Dictionary 15 

Blaine's Rural Sports 36 

Bloxam's Metals 20 

Boultbee on 39 Articles 28 

Bourne's Catechism of the Steam Engine . 27 

Handbook of Steam Engine 27 

Treatise on the Steam Engine ... 27 

Improvements in the same 27 

Bowdler's Family Shakspeare 35 

Bramley-Moore ' s Six Sisters of the Valley . 39 
Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, 

and Art 22 

Bray's Manual of Anthropology 22 

Philosophy of Necessity 11 

Brhikley's Astronomy 17 

Browne s Exposition of the 39 Articles 28 

Brunei 's Life of Brunei 7 

Buckle's History of Civilisation 3 

Posthumous Remains 12 

Bull's Hints to Mothers 39 

Maternal Management of Children . 39 

Burgomaster's Family (The) 39 



Burke's Rise of Great Families 8 

Vicissitudes of Families 8 

Busk's Folk-lore of Rome 34 

Valleys of Tirol 32 



Cabinet Lawyer 39 

Campbell's Norway 33 

Cates's Biographical Dictionary 8 

and Woodward' s Encyclopaedia ... 5 

Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths ... 13 

Chesney's Indian Polity 3 

Modern Military Biography 3 

Waterloo Campaign 3 

C lough's Lives from Plutarch 4 

Colenso on Moabite Stone &c 32 

' s Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. 32 

Speaker's Bible Commentary ... 32 

Collins s Mineralogy of Cornwall 27 

Perspective 26 

Commonplace Philosopher in Town and 

Country, by A. K. H. B 13 

Comte's Positive Polity 8 

Comyu's Elena 34 

Congreve's Essays 9 

Politics of Aristotle 10 

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